Alesha Serada Value Creation and Price Negotiation on the Blockchain-Based Marketplace The Case of CryptoKitties  ACTA WASAENSIA 533 Copyright © Vaasan yliopisto and copyright holders. ISBN 978-952-395-143-3 (print) 978-952-395-144-0 (online) ISSN 0355-2667 (Acta Wasaensia 533, print) 2323-9123 (Acta Wasaensia 533, online) URN https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-395-144-0 Hansaprint Oy, Turenki, 2024. ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be presented, with the permission of the Board of the School of Marketing and Communication of the University of Vaasa, for public examination in Auditorium Nissi on the 4st of October, 2024, at noon. Dissertation of the School of Marketing and Communication at the University of Vaasa in the field of Communication Studies. Author Alesja (Alesha) Serada, 0000-0001-6559-7686 Supervisors Professor Tanja Sihvonen University of Vaasa School of Marketing and Communication Communication Studies Professor J. Tuomas Harviainen Tampere University Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences Communication Sciences Custos Professor Tanja Sihvonen University of Vaasa School of Marketing and Communication Communication Studies Reviewers Professor Juho Lindman Department of Applied Information Technology University of Gothenburg Associate Professor Lana Swartz Department of Media Studies, University of Virginia Opponent Professor Juho Lindman Department of Applied Information Technology, University of Gothenburg V TIIVISTELM ¨ A Artikkelipohjaisessa v¨ ait¨ oskirjassani pyrin ymm¨ art¨ ama¨¨ an, kuinka non-fungible to- kenien (NFT) -arvo rakentuu pelillisell¨ a lohkoketjupohjaisella markkinapaikalla. T¨ at¨ a varten olen tehnyt monimenetelm¨ aisen tapaustutkimuksen ensimm¨ aisest¨ a, suo- situsta ja pisimpa¨a¨n olemassa olleesta lohkoketjupohjaisesta pelista¨ CryptoKitties. Ty¨ on k¨ asitteellinen ja teoreettinen perusta rakentuu my¨ os aiemmalle kirjallisuudel- le virtuaalimaailmojen talouksista, kuten esimerkiksi lohkoketjututkimusten tarjoa- mille spekulatiivisille malleille. Ty¨ on teoreettinen la¨hestymistapa kehittyy, kun seuraan arvon yhteisluontiprosessia ja l¨ oyd¨ an uusia pa¨¨ aoman muotoja NFT-yhteis¨ oss¨ a. Arvonrakentamisen kysymyst¨ a ka¨sitella¨¨ an yhteiskuntatieteiden laadullisten ja kvantitatiivisten menetelmien, kuten etnografisen havainnoinnin, pelimarkkinoiden kvantitatiivisen analyysin, kvalitatii- visen ja kvantitatiivisen lingvistisen analyysin sek¨ a pelattavuuden fenomenologi- sen analyysin yhdistelm¨ an pohjalta. Ty¨ on laadulliset ja ma¨¨ ara¨lliset tiedot on saatu havainnoimalla osallistujia sek¨ a kaapimalla tietoa keskittyen verkkopelin kahteen ensimma¨iseen vuoteen, jolloin silla¨ oli eniten pelaajia. Tutkimuksen tarkoitukse- na on selvitta¨¨ a, mik¨ a muodostaa CryptoKitties-pelin NFT:iden arvon ja kuinka nii- den ka¨yp¨ a hinta muodostuu vertaismarkkinoilla, sek¨ a tarjota mahdollisia tulkintoja n¨ aist¨ a prosesseista muiden arvon muotojen kautta. Sen tuloksena esitella¨¨ an koko- naisvaltainen ymm¨ arrys arvosta, joka perustuu yhteis¨ on NFT-arvon arvioinnin kol- meen ulottuvuuteen, ottaen huomioon lohkoketjun tuottamat mahdollisuudet. Lohkoketjupohjaisten virtuaalitalouksien suunnittelijat odottavat, virtuaalitalouksia koskevan valtavirran talousteorian mukaisesti, NFT:n arvon johtuvan keinotekoi- sesta niukkuudesta. T¨ am¨ a ty¨ o sit¨ a vastoin osoittaa, etta¨ NFT:n arvo seuraa monis- ta sosiaalisista suhteista sek¨ a kryptovaluuttakaupan yhteisest¨ a kulttuurista. Lohko- ketjujen edut, kuten keinotekoinen niukkuus ja NFT:iden ”todellinen omistajuus”, ovat helposti muokattavissa yhteis¨ on toimesta. Sen ja¨senet poimivat rutiininomai- sesti arvoa pelist¨ a hy¨ odynt¨ am¨ all¨ a markkinoilla olevien tietojen ep¨ asymmetriaa. Pe- liss¨ a esiintyv¨ an leikkis¨ an (pelillisen) asenteen kautta NFT-peleissa¨ olevista hinnois- ta tulee ”reilun pelin” kysymyksi¨ a, joiden sa¨¨ ann¨ ot ovat joustavia ja pelaajayhteis¨ on jatkuvasti uudelleenmuokkaamia. Ta¨m¨ an vahvasti rahapeleihin ja keinotteluun osal- listuvan yhteis¨ on ep¨ avirallista taloudellista toimintaa pit¨ aisikin pikemminkin siksi kuvata ”basaaritalouden”ja¨lkidigitaalisena muunnelmana. N¨ am¨ a havainnot haasta- vat uudelleenarvioimaan lohkoketjujen aktiivisten k¨ aytta¨jien omaksumaa spekula- tiivisen arvonrakentamisen la¨hestymistapaa. Avainsanat: lohkoketjut, arvonluonti, NFT:t, verkkopelit, verkkoyhteis¨ ot VI ABSTRACT In my article-based dissertation, I seek to understand how value of non-fungible to- kens (NFTs) is constructed on a gamified blockchain-based marketplace. This goal is pursued through a mixed methods case study of the first popular and the longest living blockchain-based game CryptoKitties. The groundwork for conceptualisa- tion and theory-building is found in the existing literature on economies in virtual worlds, as well as in speculative models offered by blockchain studies. My theoretical approach evolves as I follow the process of value co-creation and dis- cover new forms of capital in the NFT community. The question of value construc- tion is addressed based on the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods from social sciences, such as ethnographic observation (netnography), quantitative analysis of the game market, qualitative and quantitative linguistic analysis, and phenomenological analysis of gameplay. Qualitative and quantitative data is ob- tained by participant observation and data scraping, focusing on the first two years of this online game, when it had the most players. The purpose is to find out what constitutes the value of a CryptoKitties NFT, and how their fair price is established on the peer-to-peer marketplace, as well as to offer possible interpretations of these processes through other forms of value in society. As a result, a holistic under- standing of value is offered based on three dimensions of NFT valuation in the community, taking blockchain affordances into account. In line with the mainstream economic theory of virtual economies, designers of blockchain-based virtual economies expect the value of NFTs to be derived from artificial scarcity. Conversely, my data demonstrates that the value of NFTs is derived from manifold social relations and the shared culture of cryptocurrency trading. Blockchain affordances such as artificial scarcity and ‘true ownership’ of NFTs are easily subverted by the community, who routinely extract value from the game by exploiting information asymmetries on the market. Due to the ‘lusory’ (playful) attitude cultivated in the game, prices of NFTs become a matter of ‘fair play’, in which rules are fluid and constantly reinvented by the community of play- ers. Informal economic activity of this community, heavily involved in gambling and speculation, should rather be described as the post-digital variation of a ‘bazaar economy’. These findings call for re-evaluation of the speculative approach to value construction taken by blockchain enthusiasts. Keywords: blockchains, value creation, non-fungible tokens, online games, online communities VII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Nothing predicted that I would get this far. After all, the world I left behind no longer exists. Reading heartfelt, densely populated acknowledgements of other dis- sertations always made me feel as if my own dissertation was impossible - yet here it is. The main body of this work was written in exile and with almost complete self-reliance during the worst times of the pandemic and war. Having gone through all that, I do not have many thanks to give, but I will pay my dues. I am forever grateful to my supervisors, Professor Tanja Sihvonen and Professor J. Tuomas Harviainen, for trafficking me from the totalitarian nightmare that is my motherland Belarus. Thanks to Tanja, I learned about the ways in which European academia operates, and how to make the best of it. Tuomas has taught me that academia can also be good, kind, honest, and inclusive. Having seen both sides now, I sincerely thank both of my supervisors for getting me back on the career path of my dreams. Under Tanja’s supervision, I can say with full confidence that the entirety of my dissertation is truly my own independent work, and it makes me very proud of myself. Despite all trials and tribulations (personal, local, and global), the University of Vaasa has been a very friendly and welcoming space, even when emptied by the pandemic. The Graduate School provided excellent postgraduate education, and funded the last stretch of my PhD work, while the Nissi Foundation provided finan- cial support for my research from 2020 to 2022. The comprehensive introduction of my dissertation was written on a grant by the Foundation for Economic Education in 2023. Even more importantly, I enjoyed the mostly virtual company of my amaz- ing colleagues Merja Koskela, Niina Nissil¨ a, Liisa Ka¨¨ ant¨ a, Heidi Hirsto, Cecilia Hjerppe, Ville Manninen, Sebastian Laitila, Niklas Lundstr¨ om, Hanna Limatius, and Elisa Kannasto, and all others who had a kind word for me. By far the most important outcome of my PhD is that it has connected me to many incredibly knowledgeable and talented scholars, within and beyond the scope of my own humble work. I cannot underestimate the wisdom, and patience, of my distinguished pre-examiners, Associate Professor Lana Swartz and Professor Juho Lindman, whose work have been the guiding light to me even before the dissertation was complete. Moreover, I am honored to have Professor Juho Lindman as my opponent in the public examination. In the global research community, I am happy to know, and lucky to have collab- orated with, Usman Chohan, Paul Dylan-Ennis, Daria Balakina, Anna Svetlova, VIII and Jori Grym. PhD seminars at the IT University of Copenhagen and at the Oulu Business School, as well as DiGRA and GamiFIN conferences, provided fun and lively environments to test my ideas during the PhD years. Finally, Solip Park gen- erously gave me a much-needed consultation when my legal status as an immigrant in Finland was the shakiest. Speaking of the past so distant that it had been laid to rest already, I thank, with all my heart, Victoria Konstantiuk, for having facilitated my relationships with the European Humanities University for 15 most difficult years of my life; Damian Stewart, for proofreading the first version of my PhD application, which got me accepted to the Graduate School with competition of four to one. I am indebted to my scholarly friends, colleagues, and co-writers for my life and career, especially to: • Tomasz Majkowski and Jaroslav Sˇvelch, for reigniting my hopes and dreams in 2016 and making me a part of Eastern and Central European game studies; • Alex Pfeiffer, for all conferences, papers, and dreams of a better future on blockchain; • Gareth Schott, for his kindest support throughout my darkest times. The past had come and gone, and I had to build a new life for myself, relatively free from its gloomy and horrifying specters. I did it as well as I could, with precious help from my music therapist Una Malakovich, psychologist Minna Bjorkman, and psychotherapist Arja Sigfrids. Here, I should mention Tuomas again, and Jo, and Freddi, who have been an immense support, becoming the chosen family that I desperately needed in exile. In the end, no person is an island, although some of us are quite like peninsulas indeed. I would get nowhere without my partner in crime, my lifetime’s best friend, the wise and virtuous Mahdi. Six years ago, he said the magical words that many wannabe scholars (especially AFAB) desperately need to hear: ”Go for it if that’s what you want. We have the money”1 . I wish I had heard this when I was 15 years younger, but better late than never. And so it started; and now I have paid my dues. 1Mahdi also bought me the game Soma, which is a fun, realistic, and yet relatively lighthearted depiction of my PhD life: a constant negotiation of my dissertation and immigration issues with human and non-human entities after the end of the world. It proves, however, that you can still make new friends even after planetary death has occurred. IX CONTENTS List of Figures XI List of Tables XI 1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1 Starting points of the research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2 The objective and research questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.3 Structure of the dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2 BLOCKCHAIN AND NFTS IN GAMING . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.1 Key features of blockchains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.2 Promised decentralization and factual centralization . . . . . 11 2.3 Blockchains as sociotechnical assemblages . . . . . . . . . 14 2.4 NFTs: definition and history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.5 Crypto games, play-to-earn, play-and-earn . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.6 CryptoKitties: the money game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3 PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3.1 Blockchain epistemologies: normative and descriptive . . . 29 3.2 On the value of NFTs in games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 3.3 Value construction, co-creation, and extraction in games . . 35 3.4 Convergence of virtual and real economies in game studies . 37 3.5 Value and its extraction in a sociotechnical ludic assemblage 40 X 3.6 Lusory attitude in virtual economies before and after block- chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 3.7 Bridging the gap between blockchain and game studies . . . 44 4 DATA AND METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 4.1 Research data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 4.2 Research methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 4.2.1 Digital ethnography (netnography) . . . . . . . . 55 4.2.2 Basic quantitative analysis of game market data . . 57 4.2.3 Phenomenological analysis of the gameplay . . . . 58 4.2.4 Quantitative and qualitative linguistic analysis . . 60 4.3 Ethical considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 5 RESULTS: A HOLISTIC MODEL OF VALUE IN CRYPTOKITTIES 65 5.1 Research process and summaries of the articles . . . . . . . 66 5.2 Three dimensions of value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 6 CONCLUSIONS: TOWARDS THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL VALUE OF NFTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 6.1 Sociotechnical challenges and realities of play in CryptoKitties 80 6.2 Implications for game design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 6.3 Fair game and fair price . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 6.4 Value beyond scarcity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 6.5 The final answers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 6.6 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 6.7 Future directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 XI List of Figures 1 Changes in public interest in NFTs and cryptocurrencies over time. Source: Google Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 Key attributes of blockchain (Lapointe & Fishbane, 2019) . . . . . . 15 3 The viral tweet that reports NFT fraud, in the context of public dis- cussion on then Twitter (Croix & Kramer, 2021) . . . . . . . . . . . 17 4 Three dimensions of value of in-game assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 5 Projection of examples of value construction from previous frame- works on my model of value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 6 Algorithm flowchart for distinguishing between types of value in game assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 7 Key attributes of blockchain in CryptoKitties, challenged by human actors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 List of Tables 1 Coverage of research questions in articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2 Overview of articles included in the dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3 Types of data used in articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 4 Comparison between different aspects of value creation and extrac- tion in game assets according to Lehdonvirta, Castronova, and Martin 71 5 Compatibility with the framework by Lehdonvirta and Castronova (2014) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 XII LIST OF PUBLICATIONS The dissertation is based on the following six refereed articles and conference pa- pers: (I) Serada, A., Sihvonen, T., & Harviainen, J. T. (2021). CryptoKitties and the New Ludic Economy: How Blockchain Introduces Value, Ownership, and Scarcity in Digital Gaming. Games and Culture, 16(4), 457–480. DOI: 10.1177/1555412019898305 2 (II) Serada, A. (2020). Cryptomarkets Gamified: What Can We Learn by Playing CryptoKitties? Proceedings of the 2020 DiGRA International Conference: Play Everywhere. 3 (III) Serada, A. (2023). Does #Selling Sell? Analyzing Content of CryptoKitties Traders’ Talk on Discord. Proceedings of the 7th International GamiFIN Conference, 3405, 57–66. 4 (IV) Serada, A. (2023). Fancies explained: Converting symbolic capital into NFTs. Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture, 14(1), 55–79. DOI: 10.7557/23.6666 5 (V) Serada, A. (2021). Vintage CryptoKitties and the Quest for Authenticity. IEEE Xplore. IEEE Conference on Games (CoG), Copenhagen. DOI: 10.1109/CoG52621.2021.9619106 6 (VI) Serada, A. (2022). Fairness by Design: The Fair Game and the Fair Price on a Blockchain-Based Marketplace. In A. Dingli, A. Pfeiffer, A. Serada, M. Bugeja, & S. Bezzina (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems: Vol. 382. Disruptive Technologies in Media, Arts and Design. (pp. 63–75). Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-93780-5 7 2Reprinted in accordance with Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines 3Reprinted under CC-BY-NC licence 4Reprinted under CC-BY-NC licence 5Reprinted under CC-BY-NC licence 6Reprinted in accordance with IEEE Copyright regulations 7Reprinted in accordance with Springer Nature Author reuse conditions XIII AUTHOR’S CONTRIBUTION Publication I: “CryptoKitties and the New Ludic Economy: How Block- chain Introduces Value, Ownership, and Scarcity in Digital Gaming ” I conducted the entirety of empirical and most of theoretical research, and wrote the first draft of the article. Authors 2 and 3 contributed to writing, theoretical development, and assisted with publication of my research. Tanja Sihvonen acted as the corresponding author and the first author when presenting the results at DiGRA. Publication II: “Cryptomarkets Gamified: What Can We Learn by Play- ing CryptoKitties?” I was solely responsible for all work that went into this conference paper. Publication III: “Does #Selling Sell? Analyzing Content of CryptoKit- ties Traders’ Talk on Discord” I was solely responsible for all work that went into this conference paper. Publication IV: “Fancies Explained: How Crypto Games Learned from Video Games (or Did They?)” I was solely responsible for all work that went into this article. Publication V: “Vintage CryptoKitties and the Quest for Authenticity” I was solely responsible for all work that went into this conference paper. Publication VI: “Fairness by Design: The Fair Game and the Fair Price on a Blockchain-Based Marketplace.” I was solely responsible for all work that went into this conference paper. 1 INTRODUCTION Blockchain research used to be a novel field approximately ten years ago. The pur- pose of this chapter is to explain why it is still relevant in 2024. To the general public, blockchain may have seemed like a fresh concept around 2018, when this dissertation was conceived. However, for those studying information and commu- nication technologies, the words ‘blockchain’ and ‘Bitcoin’ entered the discourse around 2012-2013, with the appearance of the first academic publications on these topics8 . Notably, the very first publication about the cryptocurrency Bitcoin indexed in the Web of Science database in February 2012 is titled BitCoin software finds new life (Aron, 2012). This title implies a significantly long and eventful ”old life” for Bitcoin, which had been introduced to the crypto community over three years prior (on which see A. Hayes, 2019). This community has been active since the 1990s - long before blockchain (see e.g. Szabo, 1997). Blockchain is a cryptographically secure distributed ledger of transactions between its network’s members (see e.g. Lapointe & Fishbane, 2019, p. 52). It took approx- imately a decade to transition from an esoteric cypherpunk technology to a popular culture buzzword (A. Hayes, 2019; Swartz, 2018). Eventually, the community of blockchain adopters and cryptocurrency traders, particularly active on Twitter and YouTube, became a hotbed for fraudsters who orchestrated scams on an unprece- dented scale (Kshetri, 2022; S. Lee, Lee, & Lee, 2022; Scharfman, 2023; Tjahyana, 2022). The promises of a better future on blockchain have been broken so fre- quently that a dedicated news website, Web3 is Going Just Great (M. White, 2023), to track the most entertaining failures. By 2023, the ’crypto community’ was frequently represented with such corrupt figures as Sam Bankman-Fried and Logan Paul in mass media9 . In a relatively short time, the blockchain space has displayed ”most, if not all historical methods of fraud” (Scharfman, 2023, p. 7), as listed in The Cryptocurrency and Digital Asset Fraud Casebook. Meanwhile, industry professionals (e.g. Gladyshev & Wu, 2020; Scheiding, 2022) and innovation researchers found themselves deep in the ‘trough of disillusionment’ on the renowned Gartner hype cycle (on which see e.g. Fenn & Blosch, 2018). This negative sentiment has been brewing for years, with occasional peaks of optimism, such as the beginning of 2022 when the general concept of NFTs entered the mainstream (see Figure 1). According to their early adopters, NFTs were predicted to revolutionize creative industries affected by economic recession (Kugler, 2021; Vidal-Toma´s, 2022). 8Also in the field of communication studies, such as the pioneering study of Bitcoin semiotics by Maurer, Nelms, and Swartz (2013) 9Speaking of games on blockchain, Logan Paul’s CryptoZoo is a prime example of a large-scale scam (Coffeezilla, 2022; Thomas, 2023) (also see Article IV in this dissertation). Fans of this controversial influencer invested heavily into a game that was never released, a classic rug pull fraud (Scharfman, 2023, p. 70). 1 Figure 1. Changes in public interest in NFTs and cryptocurrencies over time. Source: Google Trends. A non-fungible token (NFT) is ”a unique digital certificate, registered in a block- chain, that is used to record ownership of an asset such as an artwork or a col- lectible” (NFT definition and meaning, 2023), according to Collins English Dictio- nary, which named it the Word of the Year 2021(Shariatmadari, 2021). Many saw the potential for such innovation in blockchain during the late 2010s to early 2020s (Egliston & Carter, 2023; Harviainen, Serada, & Sihvonen, 2022; Vidal-Toma´s, 2022; Yang & Wang, 2023). The video game industry, in particular, especially on its fringes, has developed a ’love-hate’ relationship with blockchain. This is likely because the industry has always been a hub for ambitious technological and creative innovation (see e.g C. J. Hayes, 2008; Prato, Feij´ oo, & Simon, 2014; Scheiding, 2022; Tavares, Sousa, Maganinho, & Gomes, 2023). Even before crypto games became available to the mass audience, blockchains and NFTs were seen as promising new playful and creative forms of value on digital markets, according to their proponents (Kow & Lustig, 2018; Swan, 2015; Vigna & Casey, 2018). The new genre of ’crypto games’ was already proliferating on the Internet’s margins, when this research took off, during the Christmas season of 2017. Ultimately, it was bound to unveil the striking similarity between the latest blockchain games and the earliest virtual worlds on the Internet. 2 Acta Wasaensia 1.1 Starting points of the research In layperson’s terms, a crypto game is a digital game that incorporates blockchain and/or cryptocurrencies in its design and gameplay (see section 2.5). According to insiders in the crypto community, the first games and gambling applications using cryptocurrencies and blockchain begat to appear around 2014 (Arnedo-Moreno & Garcia-Font, 2022; Silva & Omar, 2021). The first playful experiments with NFTs started around 2017 (e.g. CryptoPunks by Larva Labs (2017), which regained their value as of 2024). During this period, the first documented examples of NFT fraud also emerged (Scharfman, 2023, p. 164). By 2021-2022, blockchain was already an established technology from the perspective of game developers. With the hype cycle peaking in 2021, many developers became interested in the capital invested in the development of crypto games and metaverses, as highlighted by the survey of Unity programmers by Scheiding (2022). The specifics of what makes blockchain and NFTs novel as a technology are further discussed in Chapter 2. The novelty of this research begins with the observation that blockchain-based games have significantly advanced the development and adoption of blockchain platforms in general. For instance, these games have successfully gamified com- plex blockchain technologies (see Article II). The game CryptoKitties was among the most active decentralized apps on Ethereum during its initial month, as evi- denced by various metrics and extensive network analysis (Pinna, Ibba, Baralla, Tonelli, & Marchesi, 2019). Often, this type of gamification depends on external economic rewards (see e.g. Komiya & Nakajima, 2019). Many crypto games permit the exchange of non- fungible (unique) digital tokens (NFTs) for cryptocurrencies. Under certain socioe- conomic conditions, in-game rewards can be converted into income, though this approach is unsustainable and extremely risky, only benefiting a fortunate few. This offers a strong incentive for those affected by failing economies (see e.g Egliston & Carter, 2023, p. 14). This economic structure’s ethical implications are further discussed in section 2.5. However, this is not the innovation that was promised to gamers and game creators. In practice, efficient value extraction primarily benefits those with the means to invest and game companies that charge token creation fees, as suggested by Egliston and Carter (2023) in their study of blockchain-related discourse. The empirical research conducted for this dissertation, using both qualitative and quantitative data, fully confirms this assumption. It would be a simplification to assume external financial rewards or the thrill of gambling, as suggested by other studies (Scholten et al., 2019; Scholten, Zendle, & Walker, 2020; Zaucha, 2024), as the main motivation behind crypto games. These factors do not fully account for the value created by the playful nature of games, 3Acta Wasaensia regardless of the technology involved. My research was driven by a curiosity to understand the real-world application of blockchain in games played by real people, sometimes against bots (see Scholten et al., 2020). Despite frequent disappointments with blockchain, the faith of its enthusiastic users remains steadfast (Chen, 2020; Filippi de, Mannan, & Reijers, 2020; Hargrave, Sahdev, & Feldmeier, 2019; Vidal-Toma´s, 2022). Such optimism may be influenced by the sunk cost fallacy, as many blockchain enthusiasts have invested substantial time, passion, and resources into NFTs. However, a ”promissory gap” exists — a persistent gap between the ideal of trustlessness and its practical implementation (Vidan & Lehdonvirta, 2019, p.45). This growing gap suggests that the value cre- ated on the blockchain is based on social arrangements and beliefs rather than the technology itself (see Vidan & Lehdonvirta, 2019). Both the technological and so- cial implications of blockchain will be explored in depth in section 2.1. There has been considerable speculation about the potential of blockchain in gam- ing, with a significant p ortion v erging o n s peculative fi ction (s ee pa ge 34 ; sec- tion 3.1). However, most studies on blockchain and NFTs overlook the extensive literature on the economies of virtual worlds, which can provide valuable insights into why some believe that blockchain will enhance gaming. These insights are summarized in Chapters 2 and 3. 1.2 The objective and research questions The primary objective of this dissertation is to gain holistic understanding of the value construction of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) within a gamified blockchain- based marketplace. CryptoKitties is used as an exemplary case because of its long- standing presence, relatively large scale, and straightforward implementation of fea- tures typical for blockchain and NFTs. The value of NFTs is established and appreciated through a combination of tech- nological, economic, societal and playful factors. The initial line of inquiry of this dissertation’s research identifies and maps these factors in the case of CryptoKitties. Most importantly, the addition of societal and playful dimensions to NFTs’ value offsets the equilibrium price defined by supply and d emand. This raises additional questions about a ’fair price’, that is, the community’s expectations of value, shared and negotiated by players and traders. In the context of this research, the notion of fairness is examined through its opposite — cheating, as it has been discussed in game studies (Consalvo, 2007). Lastly, comparable processes of value creation and extraction are sought in previous observations from the studies of games in society. 4 Acta Wasaensia Table 1. Coverage of research questions in articles. Article № Research question 1 Research question 2 Research question 3 Article I X X Article II X X Article III X X Article IV X X Article V X X Article VI X X Based on that, the research questions are as follows. RQ1: What constitutes the value of a CryptoKitties NFT? RQ2. How is the fair price of this NFT established on a peer-to-peer marketplace? RQ3. How can the value of NFTs in CryptoKitties be understood through other forms of value in society? The dissertation consists of six articles, preceded by an integrative introductory part. Each article addresses at least two overarching research questions of the dis- sertation (see Table 1). These articles trace the researcher’s conceptual journey, be- ginning with Edward Castronova’s neoclassical model of virtual economies (Cas- tronova, 2003, 2005), also in collaboration with Vili Lehdonvirta (Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014), which relies on artificial scarcity. The journey then progresses to Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social capital (Bourdieu, 1986), and finally gestures towards an anthropological understanding of value (Graeber, 2001). This progres- sion culminates in the integration of research results in my own model of value construction (Chapter 5). The study in its entirety relies on the mixed methods research strategy. It integrates qualitative methods such as ethnographic observation (netnography), quantitative analysis of the game market, quantitative linguistic analysis, and phenomenological analysis of gameplay, with quantitative analysis of market data as well as linguistic data (see Table 2). Qualitative and quantitative data was obtained, for the most part, by participant observation and data scraping, focusing on the first two years of CryptoKitties, when it had the most players. An overview of data and methods is presented in Table 2. A detailed description of methodology and data is found in Chapter 3. Both qualitative and quantitative data indicate a greater prevalence of value extrac- tion over value creation in all areas, except for specific aspects of social capital (Article IV). This contrasts with the expectations of blockchain enthusiasts (see section 3.1). The blockchain-based game under study does not facilitate value co- creation as its designers suggested (Articles I, II). Even if it does, in a broader sense, the processes of value construction differ from techno-optimistic projections of blockchain enthusiasts (Articles IV, V). A ’fair price’ in such markets seems to be any price at which the token can be sold (Article VI). Meanwhile, quantitative 5Acta Wasaensia Table 2. Overview of articles included in the dissertation. Articles Article title RQs Data Methods Article I CryptoKitties and the New Ludic Economy: How Blockchain Introduces Value, Ownership, and Scarcity in Digital Gaming. RQ1, RQ2 Rules of the game, researcher’s observations Netnography, quantitative analysis of market data Article II Cryptomarkets Gamified: What Can We Learn by Playing CryptoKitties? RQ1, RQ3 Rules of the game, researcher’s observations Netnography, phenomenological analysis of gameplay Article III Does #Selling Sell? Analyzing Content of CryptoKitties Traders’ Talk on Discord RQ1, RQ2 Player communication, researcher’s observations quantitative and qualitative linguistic analysis, netnography Article IV Fancies Explained: How Crypto Games Learned from Video Games (or Did They?) RQ2, RQ3 Rules of the game, open market data, researcher’s observations Quantitative analysis of market data, netnography Article V Vintage CryptoKitties and the Quest for Authenticity RQ2, RQ3 Open market data, researcher’s observations, player communication Quantitative analysis of market data, netnography Article VI Fairness by Design: The Fair Game and the Fair Price on a Blockchain -Based Marketplace RQ2, RQ3 Researcher’s observations Literature review; netnography methods expose unfair and potentially deceptive practices prevalent in today’s cryp- tocurrency markets (Article III). By integrating concepts from existing literature with new concepts derived inductively from the data (Article III), a novel holistic model of value for NFTs in games is developed and presented in Chapter 5. The inquiry moves from a descriptive to an understanding mode, shifting from ethnographic and linguistic descriptions towards broader interpretations in terms of economic anthropology. The first three articles focus on the formal attributes of NFTs involved in value construction. From Article II onwards, the focus shifts towards the valuation practices in the marketplace and dedicated channels in social media. The limitations of a formal design approach to valuation are discussed in the first and especially the second article, while Articles IV-VI provide interpretations within the context of the gaming community. 1.3 Structure of the dissertation The introductory part of this dissertation consists of six chapters, divided into sec- tions. Chapter 1 introduces the novelty and purpose of this research. Chapter 2 describes the subject and context: blockchain and NFTs in general, and in Cryp- toKitties in particular. Chapter 3 presents research in virtual economies and its connection to current academic research on NFTs in games. Chapter 4 describes re- search data and methods. Chapter 5 presents a holistic model of value based on the research results. Finally, Chapter 6 points towards an anthropological understanding of value in NFTs, discusses the implication of blockchain for gaming, describes the limitations of this study, and concludes with future directions for possible research. 6 Acta Wasaensia The dissertation is completed with Bibliography and the appended publications (see List of publications). Six external publications are arranged in a logical order that supports the overarching narrative of the dissertation: from dismantling the tech- nocentric view on the value of NFTs (Articles I-II) to the particular observable elements of value (Article III), followed by the new forms of social capital (Ar- ticles VI-V), concluding with the summary of playful ethics and values in ’crypto games’ (Article VI). This order differs from the chronological order of publications, as some papers, such as Articles III and IV, required more revisions than others, and Article I was republished two years after its completion. 7Acta Wasaensia 2 BLOCKCHAIN AND NFTS IN GAMING An innumerable amount of blockchains has been developed, launched, and tested (and failed, for the most part) since the inception of the first f amous blockchain solution, the most used cryptocurrency Bitcoin (Nakamoto, 2008). While their ar- chitecture and aims can vary significantly, they all share certain common features typical of blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum. This chapter provides a concise overview of these features, along with the technosocial context surrounding them. This includes the underlying technology of blockchain platforms, the games that run on these platforms, NFTs and their trade, and the rules of the game CryptoKit- ties, which is the subject of this study. By doing so, it establishes the ontological assumptions of this dissertation: what blockchain is, and how it exists in the social world. 2.1 Key features of blockchains A blockchain is a digital ledger that facilitates the decentralization of a virtual econ- omy in a supposedly secure way. Information is stored in blocks, with each new block of information attached to the end of the chain of the already existing blocks (hence the name). This ledger is unchangeable (immutable) and add-only. The immutability of blockchain refers to its function “a list of recorded entries that can only be added to, not erased or changed” (Swartz, 2017, p.83). Technically, the only way to modify data on a blockchain is to revert the entire system to an earlier state. However, the material costs of such a reversion are so substantial that it is generally not feasible unless the financial or reputational reward outweighs the cost. In addi- tion, the hacker would need to control over 51% of the entire blockchain network10 . This scenario is extremely resource-consuming, but not technically impossible, as several exploits known as ’hard forks’ have already shown (Andersen & Bogusz, 2019; Atik & Gerro, 2018; H¨ utten & Thiemann, 2018; T. W. Kim & Zetlin-Jones, 2019; Leiponen et al., 2022). ’Hard forking’ refers to the practice of creating a different version of blockchain software that disregards ledger changes after a certain point in time. This alterna- tive version needs to be accepted by a consensus among the majority of nodes with decisive power, although not necessarily by all users. Even though the ledger itself is immutable, it is common knowledge among blockchain developers that ”every as- pect of a specific blockchain protocol may be changed through a software upgrade” 10This can be achieved by bribing other stakeholders or buying controlling shares, as serial crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun did when he assumed control of the previously decentralized blockchain, Steem. (Chohan, 2021a; Leiponen, Thomas, & Wang, 2022) 8 Acta Wasaensia (T. W. Kim & Zetlin-Jones, 2019)11 . On a positive note, ’hard forks’ are used as a form of community justice when a blockchain is hacked or abused (Andersen & Bogusz, 2019; Atik & Gerro, 2018; Fairfield & Selvadurai, 2022). The risk of a plutocratic takeover can be mitigated in a proof-of-work blockchain architecture, as initially proposed in the Bitcoin white paper (Nakamoto, 2008). A proof-of-work blockchain requires a separate computational infrastructure for ’mining’ the solutions to cryptographic puzzles, which verifies and seals blocks of data12 . This is the main technological premise of decentralization, as discussed in more detail in section 2.2. In an open and decentralized blockchain, a fee in the chosen cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin or Ether) must be paid to ’miners’ to transfer assets or record a new to- ken on the blockchain. Particularly on Ethereum, this fee is calculated as a ’gas price’, defined as ”the per-gas-unit rate the sender will pay in Ether (ETH)” (Daian et al., 2020). The enormous consumption of electricity and other resources by min- ing facilities to verify transactions on blockchains has raised serious environmental concerns (Howson & de Vries, 2022; Kshetri, 2022; Na´˜ nez Alonso, Jorge-Va´zquez, Echarte Fern´ andez, & Reier Forradellas, 2021; Read, 2022). Additionally, proof- of-work verification on Ethereum has been linked to various security issues (Daian et al., 2020; Kraft, 2019; Piasecki, 2016; Strehle & Ante, 2020). Nodes on the blockchain can function as private or corporate ’crypto wallets’ con- trolled by individuals or companies (see Pinna et al., 2019). These nodes can send and receive cryptocurrencies and other tokens within a specific blockchain network, or sometimes between different blockchains, through a bridge. Bridges are often critically vulnerable to hacks (Scharfman, 2023, p. 100)). In simple terms, a crypto wallet is defined as ”a software that allows the user to send and receive crypto trans- actions in addition to storing crypto” (Yoder, 2022). Both human and non-human players of blockchain-based games are represented by their crypto wallets in the Ethereum network and, consequently, in games (see e.g Pinna et al., 2019; Scholten et al., 2020). Creating a crypto wallet typically does not require personal data sharing. Instead, the wallet has a unique identifier, known as a ’crypto address’, making it pseudony- mous. Any transaction with a licensed entity, like a cryptocurrency exchange, re- sults in deanonymization of the wallet’s owner. All legitimate cryptocurrency ser- vices must adhere to the Know Your Customer (KYC) policy enforced by state 11See David Gerard’s critique of immutability and the explanation of forking through software up- date in the case of the DAO heist (Gerard, 2017, pp. 108-110) 12An alternative solution, a proof-of stake architecture, delegates the consensus to a limited amount of stakeholder nodes, typically the ones that own a significant amount of cryptocurrency (e.g. 32ETH in the proof-of-stake version of Ethereum 2.0), or the literal stake. While numerous other alternatives do exist, in games as well (see e.g. Komiya & Nakajima, 2019; Yuen et al., 2019), they fall outside the scope of this study, which primarily focuses on Ethereum. 9Acta Wasaensia authorities, which always requires user identification. While there is a vast array of gray and black markets for different tokens, these primarily exist in the darknet and should remain there. Cryptocurrencies are payment tokens on a blockchain, a type of ‘electronic coins’ for online transactions. They can also be broadly defined as any “form of digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography to secure and verify transactions” (Xie, 2019, p. 458), not necessarily on a blockchain. The concept of cryptographically protected money was first proposed in the early 1980s (A. Hayes, 2019), but these projects were never fully realized. There have also been blockchain-based elec- tronic monies that are not cryptocurrencies, such as the central bank digital curren- cies (CBDC) developed by the Chinese government (Xie, 2019, p. 491). While the value of money is derived from circulation and exchange (Simmel, 2004, p. 118), the prices of cryptocurrencies are, in most cases, driven by speculation (Baur, Hong, & Lee, 2018; Garcia & Schweitzer, 2015; Garcia, Tessone, Mavrodiev, & Perony, 2014; Karalevicius, Degrande, & De Weerdt, 2018; ¨ Ozt¨ urk & Bilgic¸, 2021). Despite their original intention (see Nakamoto, 2008), cryptocurrencies are rarely used for payments, except in gray and black markets (on which see e.g. Foley, Karlsen, & Putnin¸ ˇs, 2019). Characterizations of various financial instruments that exist as to- kens on a blockchain can be found in (Qiao, 2020, pp. 182-187). Bitcoin is the archetypical example of a cryptocurrency with the widest adoption. However, its use cases are still mostly limited to speculation and illicit money trans- fers (Foley et al., 2019). The Bitcoin project was initiated by a pseudonymous individual or a group of individuals known as Satoshi Nakamoto (2008). It was launched as open-source software in 2009; over the past decade, the Bitcoin net- work has been maintained and updated by the Bitcoin Foundation (2012). A blockchain platform can simply be described as a ’programmable’ blockchain. Its nodes can run small instances of executable code. Ethereum, conceived by its evangelist Vitalik Buterin (2013) and released as open-source software in 2015, is one of the first and largest blockchain platforms. The subject of this dissertation, the game CryptoKitties, also runs on Ethereum, although its publishers had attempted to move it to their own proprietary proof-of-stake blockchain Flow (Ante, 2022, p. 1220), to limited success, as it is described in Article II of this dissertation (Serada, 2020b). Many blockchain-based games and NFT art projects still use the cryptocurrency Ether that Ethereum operates on. An important feature of blockchain platforms, such as Ethereum, is their ability to host so-called decentralized apps, or Dapps (sometimes spelled as dApps or DApps (Scharfman, 2023; Wang et al., 2020). A Dapp can be described as “a software that has been built and runs on top of a blockchain system” (Gladyshev & Wu, 2020, p. 77), often running as a web application in a user’s browser. Instead of server- side programs, Dapps utilize ‘smart contracts’, which are small self-executable pro- grams that can run on any node of the blockchain network, such as crypto wallets 10 Acta Wasaensia mentioned above. Daian et al. define smart contracts as ”small computer programs executed without user intervention, often by a system that allows all of its partici- pants to verify these programs’ correct execution” Daian et al. (2020). The success of the Ethereum platform has been largely due to this feature: as of May 2020, when the data for this dissertation was being collected, 82% of all Dapps ran on Ethereum (Wang et al., 2020). 2.2 Promised decentralization and factual central- ization Decentralization is a widely discussed feature of blockchain projects, although it is not exclusive to them. Technically speaking, ‘decentralization’ can be defined as ”a principle of the organisation of computers in a network which can be distinguished from centralized systems and (sometimes) distributed systems” (Becker, 2019, p. 13). As noted in Saghiri (2020), peer-to-peer sharing protocols such as torrents also engender decentralized networks13 . Unlike other examples of peer-to-peer networks, nodes in a blockchain network do not have to, and often cannot, be exactly the same in terms of network architec- ture. They may differ in function and even form hierarchies (Atik & Gerro, 2018; Saghiri, 2020; Serada, 2020b). For instance, some Bitcoin nodes are full nodes that maintain an ever-growing record of all transactions in the ledger, while other nodes are limited in size and/or functionality. Hosting a full node is already beyond the capabilities of an average PC owner, due to its size and network requirements. This is just one of the many signs of re-centralization of blockchains. Decentralization of blockchains, however, is supported and justified by other as- pects, such as cryptographic security, transparency, and immutability, none of which are features of torrent networks. Transparency implies that historical data of all transactions recorded on a public blockchain can be accessed by anyone, directly, through an API or a basic user interface. In practice, this data may be difficult to in- terpret without the professional expertise in blockchains; moreover, the expert users use a number of strategies to double back their digital traces (see e.g. Article V in this dissertation). In theory, the initial proof-of-work architecture of a public blockchain could operate without a single coordination center or main node, serving as a robust, immutable, and transparent source of data for all transactions in the network (Iansiti & Lakhani, 2017; Nakamoto, 2008). In practice, actual implementations of blockchains are 13Jed McCaleb, the developer behind the first major Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, made his debut in the IT scene with eDonkey, one of the first popular peer-to-peer sharing protocols for digital content such as films and music (Popper, 2015) 11Acta Wasaensia highly centralized (see e.g. Filippi de et al., 2020). As mentioned above, data veri- fication on a proof-of-work blockchain involves ’mining’, or solving cryptographic puzzles on dedicated hardware. Since around 2015, mining has been conducted in specialized, industrial-scale facilities akin to large data servers (Becker, 2019). These facilities are co-owned by ’miners’ (private entrepreneurs and various-sized firms) and investors (see Serada, 2020a) who favor centralization of capital and re- sources. The technological and business maturation of cryptocurrency trading has also lead to its centralization (Daian et al., 2020; Grobys, 2021). Decentralization and disintermediation in a pseudonymous network facilitating fi- nancial transactions necessitate additional security measures. A certain degree of accountability (or cautiousness) on public blockchains is achieved through trans- parency of all records about the transactions in the ledger, at least those that are on-chain. Cryptographic security implies that the blocks of data about transac- tions are sealed with hash functions that demand substantial computational power to calculate. Maurer et al. explain blockchain cryptography as follows: ”The math- ematics of the puzzle ensures that while it is difficult to solve, it is not difficult to verify” (Maurer et al., 2013, p. 264). Beyond ledger immutability, general security of a blockchain is the responsibility of its development team. Cryptographic data protection on the ledger is reason- ably safe, unless another vulnerability of the blockchain platform or its users is exploited (Scharfman, 2023; Wang et al., 2020). Exploits of extra functionalities such as smart contracts are commonplace: at least seven such cases are listed in The Cryptocurrency and Digital Asset Fraud Casebook by Scharfman (2023) (see also Daian et al., 2020; Guidi & Michienzi, 2022; Wang et al., 2020). Among other technological features, blockchain systems have high internal in- tegrity (Eyal, 2017), meaning that the amount of data stored on the blockchain is definite and predictable based on the network’s growth r ate. On the downside, all positive features of blockchains come at the expense of scalability(see e.g. Andoni et al., 2019; Eyal, 2017; Silva & Omar, 2021). This means that benefits from using a blockchain diminish when its adoption grows. The data stored on the actual blockchain cannot be particularly large for each entry, so the ledger only refers to the digital addresses of the actual files (e.g., graphic as- sets), which are typically stored elsewhere, on a conventional web server paid for by the game’s publishers, or on a peer-to-peer file-sharing network such as The Inter- Planetary File System (IPFS) (Benet, 2015). This arrangement creates opportunities for all kinds of fraud (Fairfield & Selvadurai, 2022; Mackenzie & B ¯ erzin¸a, 2021; Scharfman, 2023; Smaili & de Rancourt-Raymond, 2022; Yoder, 2022). Therefore, cryptographic security does not cover the material representation of the digital asset itself, nor does it have any legal binding in the real world, unless supported by an actual legal contract (Ducuing, 2019; Fairfield & S elvadurai, 2022; L ow & Mik, 2020). 12 Acta Wasaensia Truly decentralized architecture, as seen in Bitcoin, allows consensus between two parties in a trustless environment without a legal intermediary (Nakamoto, 2008). Disintermediation means that system users can interact directly without needing approval from a controlling entity such as the company or the sole owner of the platform (see e.g. A. Hayes, 2019). However, the integration into the global finan- cial system has created new intermediaries, potentially even less trustworthy. As observed by those familiar with trading practices, ”cryptocurrency exchanges typ- ically charge fees for trading and store virtual currencies for their clients, which makes cryptocurrency exchanges vulnerable” (Grobys, 2021). This social reality refutes the crypto-utopian claims about disintermediation of cryptocurrencies, even when their technological architecture is de facto reasonably decentralized. Today’s cryptocurrency trading is a highly professionalized and by now largely au- tomated field. Even fraudulent activity can be automated, as demonstrated by Daian et al. (2020) in their study of ’arbitrage bots’. Lana Swartz characterizes this state of the market as “a new hyper-marketized form of mediation” (Swartz, 2018, p. 640), where intermediaries such as trading platforms enable increasingly more complex and risky forms of trading. The gamification of blockchain technologies, as seen in gaming NFTs, has coin- cided with this process of ’hypermediation’ (Carr, 2000). As stated in Article II of this dissertation, acquiring cryptocurrency for gaming was, and to many, remains a hurdle for casual game players. Naturally, the people who were the first and the most active in the game were those who had surplus cryptocurrencies from other sources such as trading. As a result, cryptocurrency traders were an important part of the core player base of the earliest blockchain-based games. As noted in Article VI, these players also shaped the distinct communal ethics of crypto games, playing a crucial role in the process of value construction on the game’s NFT marketplace (see Article III). Historically, the grey and black markets for game items have always possessed some level of disintermediation (see section 3.4). This has allowed some gamers and game developers to see potential in blockchain (see section 3.2). In theory, remov- ing intermediaries from peer-to-peer transactions is expected to generate value and trust (Filippi de et al., 2020; Vidan & Lehdonvirta, 2019; Vigna & Casey, 2018), creating safe and secure platforms that could be used for entertainment purpose, as well. In practice, this means elimination of customer protection (which the Bitcoin white paper (Nakamoto, 2008) even describes as a benefit to the seller). Users bear full personal responsibility for everything that happens to them or their assets, much like when they trade traditional game items outside the game. This principle, known as ’Do your own research’, is discussed in detail on page 44. The ethical ambiguity of disintermediation in the gaming context is discussed in section 3.4. 13Acta Wasaensia 2.3 Blockchains as sociotechnical assemblages It would be impossible to make sense of blockchain as a technology without includ- ing its adopters into the equation. Blockchain’s features exist as an entanglement of technological affordances (what blockchain as a technology can do) and human values (what blockchain enthusiasts believe it can do), separated by the promissory gap (Vidan & Lehdonvirta, 2019). To address these peculiarities of complex so- ciotechnical systems, Science and Technology Studies (STS) offer the posthuman, or ’more-than-human’ (Pyyhtinen, 2016) perspective, in the form of Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Developed by John Law (2008) and popularized by Bruno Latour (2007), this theory challenges the existing hierarchies between human and non- human actors, such as artifacts or their assemblies. Instead, it supplies social sci- ences with a new ontology, a network of ”the different kinds of actors in the world” (Law, 2008, p. 146). According to Law, this new ontology is characterized by net- worked heterogeneity: ”people are relational effects that include both the human and the non-human (...) while objectwebs conversely include people (...)” (Law, 2008, p. 149). This is not dissimilar from the decentralized vision of blockchain networks, smart contracts, and nodes that unambiguously represent human actors in them (Buterin, 2013). Ideally, this new ontology of human and non-human actors is non-hierarchical, or ”flat”: each of them ”remains side by side and firmly on the same plane as the other loci” (Latour, 2007, p. 176). Therefore, the social and the material are enmeshed into the single technosocial fabric. An early study of innovations and innovators in this light can be found in Bruno Latour’s Science in Action (Latour, 1987). He argues that even so-called ’hard’ scientific facts a re p roduced t hrough a social construction process t hat in- volves individuals, organizations, and machines. To ”spread out in time and space”, innovators must translate their interests into the explicit desires of investors in order ”to enroll others so that they participate in the construction of the fact” (Latour, 1987, p. 108). The prominence of this approach in blockchain studies will become apparent in section 3.1. Inspired by ANT, numerous researchers have described blockchain solutions as so- ciotechnical assemblages (Becker, 2019; A. Hayes, 2019; Swartz, 2018). These complex heterogeneous objects incorporate both technologies and their users, com- bining factual, potential and imagined properties in a non-hierarchical way. This model has also been applied to trading and finances. Such as, Olli Pyyhtinen char- acterizes the stock trading disruption caused by a trading bot at the New York Stock Exchange in 2012 as an assemblage of diverse human and non-human elements, including ”software, computers, traders, companies, risks, trust and money” (Pyy- htinen, 2016, p. 58) as well as complex processes at the global scale of trading and finance. Such disruptions, possible even in CryptoKitties, are a very common occurrence at cryptomarkets today. 14 Acta Wasaensia Figure 2. Key attributes of blockchain (Lapointe & Fishbane, 2019). One of the first frameworks that incorporates both social and technological at- tributes of blockchain was proposed by MIT scholars Cara Lapointe and Lara Fish- bane Lapointe and Fishbane (2019) (also discussed in Article VI of this disserta- tion). This framework outlines key blockchain attributes for designing social sys- tems in an ethical way (which is relevant to creating value in society). The list of attributes includes trust, immutability, pseudonimity, verifiability, controllability, security, disintermediation and transparency (Figure 2), most of which just have been discussed above. Sociotechnical ambiguity of blockchains is best illustrated by the concept of trust, which Lapointe and Fishbane place at the pinnacle of their structural scheme of blockchain’s attributes. In their model, trust is supported by transparency, im- mutability, security and verifiability, although not connected to disintermediation, pseudonymity or controllability of blockchain assets. For instance, one of the core attributes that supports trust is, according to the authors, “strong security for in- dividuals” (Lapointe & Fishbane, 2019, p. 53). However, this aspect requires a socially aware critical approach to the intertwined technological and social compo- nents of security. Technologically, security of blockchain systems for individuals in particular is not factual, but perceived, imagined, and easily exploitable. Fac- tual vulnerability is evident from the extensive history of blockchain-based fraud (Gandal, Hamrick, Moore, & Oberman, 2018; Grobys, 2021; Guidi & Michienzi, 2022; Kshetri, 2022; Scharfman, 2023; Strehle & Ante, 2020). From the ANT per- spective, this imagined ’security’ refers to a particular social construct employed by blockchain adopters to enroll new users and attract funding from investors. In the light of Latour’s Science in Action, describing blockchain as ’secure’ in academic literature is a straightforward, perhaps even extreme, attempt to produce ’hard facts’ that serve the interests of innovators. 15Acta Wasaensia Blockchain assemblages show a variety of relations between the technological and the social, some of which are conveniently mapped in Figure 2 even despite its technocentricity. Such as, verifiability and controllability, as described by Lapointe and Fishbane, are derived from a combination of technical and social values: mem- bers of the crypto community choose to believe that an NFT is fully in control of its owner, and its ownership is verifiable. Technically, both assumptions are easily destroyable. Verifiability is expected to stem from transparency; incorporate a consensus mech- anism that verifies the accuracy of data on the blockchain through v oting. In ob- servable reality, the weight of individual votes is often determined by the amount of cryptocurrency that the involved stakeholders literally hold as their stake in the busi- ness; such an arrangement is very easy to abuse by bribes and buyouts (Goldberg & Sch ¨ar, 2023). Next, controllability is derived from both verifiability a nd s ecurity - a s reliable and trustworthy as both of them combined. By a social convention, controllabil- ity means that the user of a blockchain system expects to maintain control over their personal information and assets . This expectation is a matter of trust, rather than technology. This feature is even easier to exploit than verifiability, from which it is derived. In social reality, controllability of blockchain assets refers to the intensity of trust that the user holds in a blockchain as a technology. The opposite of controllability, disorder, has been exemplified in the “All my apes gone” viral tweet (Figure 3) at the start of 2022. This tweet contained a complaint from an unlucky NFT enthusiast - one of the many who unexpectedly lost control of their expensive Bored Apes NFTs due to a scam (Fairfield & Selvadurai, 2022). Such widely publicized lack of controllability in NFT assets likely contributed to the sharp decline in public interest in NFTs in spring 2022 (Figure 1). Despite its shortcomings, the scheme from the Blockchain Ethical Design Frame- work effectively illustrates the entanglement between social and technological fea- tures of blockchain, even when it misses the gap between them. Such entanglement is typical for sociotechnical assemblages, due to their non-hierarchical structures, which incorporate human and non-human actors in the process of production of new societal forms. Such as, in the context of this dissertation, new forms of social capital are discussed in its Article IV; the structure of value of NFTs in Article III is a phenomenon of the same kind. A further disentanglement of technology and social constructs that make sense of it is suggested in Discussion, in section 6.1. 16 Acta Wasaensia Figure 3. The viral tweet that reports NFT fraud, in the context of public discussion on then Twitter (Croix & Kramer, 2021). 2.4 NFTs: definition and history The value of NFTs is constructed through the interpretation of their technologi- cal properties by the community of their owners and traders. In simple terms (see page 2), NFTs are unique tokens registered on a blockchain that refer to specific digital assets. From a technological standpoint, an NFT can be defined as “a unit of data stored on a blockchain that certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore not interchangeable” (Nadini et al., 2021), or as “a serialized numerical token that references a specific point of data stored within a blockchain network” (Murray, 2021). Each single non-fungible token is unique, with its value established relative to other tokens and mediated through cryptocurrency. This principle of valuation was explicitly used as the value basis for CryptoKitties when the game was de- signed (CryptoKitties, 2018). Conversely, cryptocurrency tokens are fungible: any two Bitcoins, or any two identical amounts of Bitcoin, will hold the exact same ex- change value for any given transaction. Both cryptocurrencies and NFTs belong to the large class of digital assets, specifically the ’crypto assets’ subcategory (Crypto- assets: Work underway, regulatory approaches and potential gaps, 2019; Inozemt- sev, 2021). Pillai et al. define crypto assets as ”a type of digital assets, recorded on a blockchain ledger, which utilize techniques such as cryptography, distributed consensus, peer-to-peer network, and smart contract in order to create, transact and verify in a decentralized manner” (Pillai, Biswas, & Muthukkumarasamy, 2019, p. 7). In the context of this dissertation, an NFT is understood as a digital asset registered on blockchain, which can be traded on a peer-to-peer marketplace. Normally these trades involve cryptocurrencies, but sometimes real money is used for valuation and mediation purposes (e.g. for Muse, 2020). CryptoKitties tokens, sometimes referred to as ’kitties’, are treated as crypto assets that hold value or can generate more value 17Acta Wasaensia for their holders when used in the blockchain-based game (CryptoKitties) or by being traded on an NFT marketplace. An NFT marketplace is a digital marketplace where NFTs are traded, typically in exchange for cryptocurrencies (B. White, Mahanti, & Passi, 2022; Yoder, 2022), although other types of fungible tokens may be accepted, such as Wrapped Cryp- toKitties (WCK), on which see page 27. The most popular NFT marketplace so far has been OpenSea (OpenSea, 2018): allowing peer-to-peer trading of crypto game assets, digital art, and even land in virtual worlds like Decentraland. As previously mentioned, various crypto wallets are available to store blockchain-based assets, with MetaMask being the most popular choice. MetaMask is also primarily used for logging into and playing CryptoKitties. The process of spending fungible tokens (cryptocurrencies) to create non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on a blockchain is referred to as ‘minting’. Cryptocurrency is spent to validate new tokens and add them to the blockchain. Another way to describe it is “the process by which a new block is created, validated by the network and ultimately confirmed and added to the blockchain” (B. White et al., 2022, p . 489). While new tokens can be generated for free, they will not be part of the block- chain unless someone pays or contributes computational power for their verifi- cation. Smart contracts can be programmed to create new tokens, which can be used for creative and financial purposes as well as for fraudulent activities (Guidi & Michienzi, 2022). The first NFT prototypes emerged around 2 014, with the fi rst viable projects ap- pearing in 2017. These include digital art collectibles CryptoPunks (Larva Labs, 2017) and collectible post-ironic ’digital pets’ at Ether Rock (EtherRock, 2017). The technological maturation of this concept led to the creation and recognition of blockchain protocol standards labeled ERC-20 (Ethereum Request for Comments 20) and ERC-721 (Ethereum Request for Comments 721). These standards fa- cilitate ownership and trade between other dApps on Ethereum, like crypto wal- lets and crypto games (Ante, 2022; Chen, 2020; Egliston & Carter, 2023). For example, CryptoPunks are “almost an ERC-20 token” (Larva Labs, 2017), Ether Rock NFTs are ERC-20 compatible, and CryptoKitties are more technologically advanced ERC-721 tokens (CryptoKitties, 2018). Since then, ERC-721 has become the most commonly used standard for NFTs on Ethereum. Following the ‘crypto winter’ of 2019-2020, the adoption of NFTs broadened into digital art (Kugler, 2021; Yoder, 2022) and fan collectibles (Murray, 2021; Zaucha & Agur, 2022). OpenSea’s quantitative data demonstrates a shift in the NFT hold- ers and speculators’ interest from games to art (B. White et al., 2022). The NFT market gained significant public attention in 2021 (see Figure 1), thanks to several high-profile NFT sales and celebrity endorsements (Serada, 2023d), some of which were specifically orchestrated for this purpose. For instance, the first peak of public interest in 2021 aligns with the purchase of a digital artwork by the artist known as 18 Acta Wasaensia Beeple for $69 million at a Christie’s auction in February 2021 (Ante, 2022; Castor, 2021). The second, even higher wave of public interest in NFTs was driven by the success of the Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection. Many US celebri- ties purchased BAYC tokens, mainly with the assistance of their PR and marketing divisions, at the start of 2022 (Jones, 2022; Serada, 2023d). Despite extraordinary marketing deals, the reputation of BAYC project began to falter, as non-believers could observe the prominent promissory gap between the observable and imagined properties of NFTs (see Figure 3)(Fairfield & Selvadurai, 2022). By the end of 2022, this PR campaign had mostly fizzled out, and BAYC NFTs have since lost most, if not all, of their economic and reputational value. In summary, NFTs were designed to gain value from the technological properties of blockchain as they were interpreted by the community of blockchain adopters: de- centralization, disintermediation, security, verifiability, controllability, immutabil- ity, pseudonimity and transparency. Such an interpretation, however, did not fa- cilitate value creation in the intended way, as many of these properties were mere community’s interpretations which deviated from the factual properties of the tech- nology. For instance, the initially decentralized market quickly centralized among the largest and wealthiest traders, as quantitative research of NFTs demonstrates (Jiang & Liu, 2021; Lai, Fan, & Cai, 2023; Lu, Lauritano, & Peltonen, 2023; Nadini et al., 2021; B. White et al., 2022). Furthermore, these traders were able to influence the supply of the particularly rare tokens (also see Articles III and V of this disserta- tion). Next, disintermediation was compromised by newly emerging intermediaries such as game platforms (Ducuing, 2019) and NFT marketplaces (B. White et al., 2022; Yoder, 2022). Due to insufficient security and unregulated, often detrimen- tal mediation, verifiability and controllability were reduced to unconditional trust, more appropriately characterized as confidence (see page 87). The discussion of these changes in the process of value creation in CryptoKitties and beyond consti- tutes Chapter 6 of this dissertation. As of 2024, nothing had been done to close this promissory gap (apart from more promises). The failed launch of the Bored Apes metaverse in May 2022 (Locke, 2022) exemplified the same scalability limitations CryptoKitties faced in late 2017. Same as five years before that, whenever an NFT project on Ethereum gains mass attention, transactions become too slow and costly for the blockchain to be usable, let alone valuable for gaming in any way. While some advancements have been made, such as the introduction of Ethereum 2.0, momentum was lost again in 2022, further hindered by justifiably negative publicity. Are we there yet in terms of mass adoption? To put this into perspective, 2017 was also the year when dockless electric scooters first appeared on the mass market. Today, thanks to scooter-sharing platforms like Lime and Bolt, these recent inno- vations have become a common sight in urban landscapes. While NFTs have been featured in the news more frequently, their actual, that is, observable and measur- 19Acta Wasaensia able, adoption is not comparable to the invasion of e-scooters in the daily lives of urban citizens worldwide. At least, in certain countries, everyone seems to know someone who was in an accident that involved an electric scooter. Luckily, very few of us have friends who lost their money investing in NFTs, such as those in Logan Paul’s ’crypto game’(Coffeezilla, 2022), which still remains non-existent as of 2024. 2.5 Crypto games, play-to-earn, play-and-earn So far, the terms ‘blockchain-based games’ and ‘crypto games’ have been used in- terchangeably in a self-explanatory manner to refer to digital games that incorporate blockchain and cryptocurrencies. From now on, the focus will be on ’crypto games’ in particular: that is, games that incorporate NFTs tradeable for cryptocurrencies on a peer-to-peer basis. Most early examples of these games were game of chance which gameplay was in many ways similar to gambling (Scholten et al., 2019); the second generation of crypto games was predominantly represented by multiplayer role-playing games with the possibility to cash out earnings (Delfabbro, Delic, & King, 2022; Vidal-Toma´s, 2022; Zaucha & Agur, 2023). While not all games that incorporate blockchain use cryptocurrencies, peer-to-peer trading is the defining feature of the crypto game g enre. Exceptions are rare and not relevant to this study, such as prototypes built by researchers of blockchain as proofs of concept (Cai & Wu, 2019; Komiya & Nakajima, 2019; Paajala, Nyyss ¨ ol¨ a, Mattila, & Karppinen, 2022; Yuen et al., 2019); they are deemed irrelevant to this study due to lack of player adoption or even the absence of an actual game at the time of writing. The trading game mechanic almost always presupposes specific social skills and specialized knowledge, even if the rest is a game of luck, as in the case of CryptoKitties. The first game to incorporate Bitcoin, Huntercoin, was also developed in 2014 as a proof of concept (Mataruna-dos Santos & Wanick, 2019, p.62). In general, the use of blockchains and cryptocurrencies in games dates back to the early 2010s (Silva & Omar, 2021, 873). During this time, blockchain platforms and cryptocurrencies saw widespread adoption among gamblers and gambling businesses (Piasecki, 2016; Scholten et al., 2020). Online casinos and other games of chance already existed on the blockchain, with early examples like Satoshi Dice (H¨ utten & Thiemann, 2018; Piasecki, 2016). After a brief period of maturation, crypto games have become separated from pure gambling, for example, as categorized by the popular analytic service DappRadar (see also Serada, Sihvonen, & Harviainen, 2021, on the data from 2019). Un- like crypto gambling, crypto games involve some degree of skill and playfulness, 20 Acta Wasaensia whereas the latter primarily relies on chance. Crypto gambling remains a significant part of the blockchain innovation landscape. In Europe, its representatives congre- gate at professional summits organized by the SiGMA Group(SiGMA - The World’s Online Gambling Authority, 2020), registered in Cyprus and based in Malta. How- ever, crypto gambling is a somewhat separate, and considerably larger, industry that deserves its own analysis. The terms ’blockchain games’ (Paajala et al., 2022; Tavares et al., 2023; Vidal- Tom´ as, 2022), ’blockchain-based games’ (Qiao, 2020) and ’blockchain gaming’ (Egliston & Carter, 2023) typically describe games that incorporate blockchains in some form. A significant milestone in the history of this new genre was the launch of BlockchainGamer.biz in March 2018. It is part of the Steel Media Network, a leading British gaming business media house. Today, BlockchainGamer.biz contin- ues to serve as a platform for crypto game professionals to share news, host events, and communicate in a more grounded manner compared to other crypto media out- lets, particularly in the US, which often disregard reality if it does not align with their blockchain narrative. The new genre of ’crypto games’ began to take shape in the global game market following the emergence of CryptoKitties in November 2017. Sometimes spelled as ’crypto-games’ (Scholten et al., 2019) or ’cryptogames’ (Egliston & Carter, 2023), this term originated in early industry discussions about the new genre. Its widespread adoption occurred at industry events, such as the first instalment of the Crypto Games Conference in May 2018 in Kiev, Ukraine (Barile, 2018; Crypto Games Conference, 2018). In a broad sense, the term ’crypto game’ refers to any game that incorporates block- chain, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs: “every game that uses distributed ledgers to op- erate the game and a cryptocurrency for exchanging items or characters for money” (Silva & Omar, 2021, p. 847). More specifically, ‘family features’ of a crypto game include technological aspects such as the use of blockchain and cryptocurren- cies, structural attributes such as game rules and challenges, and a certain degree of player freedom of choice and self-actualization, which allows to call it a game (see more on such a ’lusory attitude’ on page 36). In stricter terms, a crypto game is a rule-based leisure software operating “atop a cryptocurrency network” (Scholten et al., 2019). It requires at least some element of skill or game-specific knowl- edge to be distinguished from gambling software, which now commonly involves cryptocurrencies. The design of CryptoKitties pioneered the application of gaming knowledge and skills to blockchain-based software, although the role of skill in the game can be unclear to outside observers, as detailed in my short paper (Serada, 2020c). CryptoKitties garnered significant media attention in December 2017, just a month after its public release in November 2017. At its peak, the game had over 17,500 concurrent players, comparable to the daily numbers of a moderately successful 21Acta Wasaensia free-to-play game by industry standards (DappRadar, 2023). There have been nu- merous instances where the trading prices of CryptoKitties have exceeded $100,000 in US dollar equivalent, with some transactions raising suspicions of money laun- dering (Mala, 2018, see also Article VI of this dissertation). Most major purchases took place within the first two months of the game’s launch (CryptoKitties Team, 2018c; KittyExplorer, 2021). This success was short-lived, and the player count declined rapidly after the initial peak. The unexpected success of CryptoKitties, following its launch in November 2017, inspired the creation of hundreds of crypto game projects, with dozens of actu- ally playable (even if not always enjoyable) games emerging in 2018. Although many of these projects were short-lived, they gained attention on platforms such as BlockchainGamer.biz and at industry events. Most of these games went down in history as abandonware shortly afterwards. This Cambrian explosion of blockchain- based life forms only lasted until the cooldown of the crypto market in 2019-2020 (the ’crypto winter’), triggered by yet another cryptocurrency crash. Many games from this first generation left ’digital traces’ on the internet and in academic research (Min, Wang, Guo, & Cai, 2019; Pfeiffer, Kriglstein, & Wernbacher, 2020; Scholten et al., 2019; Serada et al., 2021). However, most of them did not survive the ’crypto winter’ of 2019-2020. The emerging genre required its own ecosystem, including crypto wallets like Meta- mask, analytics such as Dappradar, and dedicated servers on the gaming chat and voice communication platform Discord, currently the most popular communica- tion platform for NFT-related projects. At this initial stage, the development of blockchain-based games was primarily aimed at gamifying blockchain technologies and cryptocurrency trading, as discussed in Article II of this dissertation. Most of these games imitated earlier generations of collectible games. Synchronous game- play was impossible due to the inherent technological limitations of blockchain, such as immutability, disintermediation, and verifiability. Other noteworthy first- generation crypto games that are still active include monster breeding simulators like Blockchain Cuties (Blockchain Cuties, 2018), and probabilistic racing games such as ZED RUN(Virtually Human Studio, 2018), on which see (Zaucha, 2024). The next stage of blockchain-based game development began with the resurgent public interest in NFTs in 2021. This includes games such asNeon District (Games, 2022) and Alien Worlds (DACOCO, 2021).Importantly, new token economies en- abled not just the gamification of finances, but also labor, especially in developing countries (De Jesus et al., 2022; Delic & Delfabbro, 2022; Lai et al., 2023).This emerging trend, known as ’play-to-earn’, drew a much larger audience than Cryp- toKitties, primarily at the cost of fun and leisure that games are expected to provide. The genre of play-to-earn games is characterized by the player’s ability to convert in-game rewards into real-world money. The play-to-earn model can be described as “another version of RMT (real money trade) in traditional online games” (Lai et 22 Acta Wasaensia al., 2023, p.256) by those familiar with traditional online games. The term ‘play-to- earn’ started to appear in professional discussions around late 2018 or early 2019 and gained popularity in 2021 in relation to crypto games that rewarded players with cryptocurrencies for their activity. Some of these games initially demonstrated remarkable ambitions, for instance, F1® Delta Time (DappRadar, 2022), the offi- cial game of Formula 1® Racing. The company behind the game sold some of the most expensive NFTs at the time (Hoogendoorn, 2020), but the game was eventu- ally discontinued in 2022 due to content licensing arrangements with F1® (Brands, 2022). The success of the best known play-to-earn project Axie Infinity (T. Nguyen, 2018), also can be attributed to the ability to exchange in-game fungible tokens for cryp- tocurrency, which can then be converted into real-world money on crypto exchan- ges. As late as January 2023, Axie Infinity had one of the largest communities on the gaming communication platform Discord, among all game servers in general (Ceci, 2023). However, its popularity was already on a decline due to the exploita- tive tendencies inherent to the concept of playing games for money (De Jesus et al., 2022; Delic & Delfabbro, 2022; Lai et al., 2023). The relationship between crypto games and the ‘traditional’ game industry has been, for the most part, troubled and unrewarding. Even before the advent of crypto games, Zynga, a free-to-play publishing giant, trialed a pilot project that involved bitcoin in 2014, but it was soon discontinued (Bradbury, 2014). In the initial stage of crypto game evolution in 2018-2020, some developers and crypto enthusiasts experimented with cryptocurrencies (Qiao, 2020) and NFTs (Abarbanel & Macey, 2019) to enhance the functionalities of existing games, to same results. The second wave of hype brought institutional support: for instance, in March 2021, Unity, a major game development platform, enabled NFT integration into their game engine. This move encouraged some indie game developers to consider the crypto games genre (Scheiding, 2022), but the results of this are yet to be seen; in the meantime, games with NFTs were banned from the most popular PC game platform Steam due to being ’dodgy’ (Robinson, 2022). Following the NFT hype in 2021, several major entertainment brands launched pi- lot projects involving NFTs: this list includes Sega, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Square Enix (see Tavares et al., 2023). Square Enix has been planning to introduce NFTs into their games since late 2021 (Matsuda, 2022, 2023). One of the longest running virtual pet games Neopets (Powell & Powell, 1999) added NFTs in 2021, to mostly negative response from players (Bevan, 2021; Carpenter, 2021; Vincent, 2021). Ubisoft made several attempts to incorporate NFTs to their games in 2021- 2023 (Klepek, 2022), which was labeled as “self-inflicted PR nightmare” by Kotaku (Gach, 2023). As of 2024, it is still possible that a third generation of blockchain- based games could emerge, focusing on quality leisure rather than ’play-to-earn’ economic exploitation. 23Acta Wasaensia Today, the term ’play-to-earn’ is commonly used to describe games where “individ- uals receive monetary rewards for gameplay” (Delic & Delfabbro, 2022). However, this term is often ridiculed outside the blockchain enthusiast community (Gach, 2023; Scheiding, 2022; Tavares et al., 2023): it suggests that these games are played for money, not for enjoyment (Tavares et al., 2023). This goes against the gamer ethics, on which see section 3.4). In response, the term ‘play-and-earn’ was in- troduced to the blockchain developer community around 2022 by serial crypto en- trepreneur Eran Elhanani. According to Elhanani, the difference between ’play-to- earn’ and ’play-and-earn’ is that the latter “rather than focusing on value extraction (...) is built around rewarding gamers for playing games that they would otherwise be playing for fun” (Elhanani, 2023). Even though this approach theoretically aligns with my research findings, such games have yet to become a reality. 2.6 CryptoKitties: the money game This section describes the subject matter of the research conducted for this disser- tation - the rules and practices of play in CryptoKitties. This brief summary aims to help readers unfamiliar with the game make sense of the arguments presented in subsequent Chapters and Articles. More in-depth theoretical analysis and discus- sions on its implications can be found in Chapters 5 and 6, respectively. CryptoKitties is the first popular and longest-running game on the blockchain, de- signed around NFTs of varying value. Some of the game’s rules are set in immutable smart contracts, while more complex mechanics have evolved through communal play. This information can be sourced from corporate paratexts such as the game’s official blog (e.g CryptoKitties Team, 2018a, 2018b, 2018d, 2018e, 2019, etc.), its initial design document, White Pa-Purr (CryptoKitties, 2018), as well as player communication on Discord and my own observations from playing the game pre- sented in the Articles that comprise this dissertation. CryptoKitties was developed in 2017 by Axiom Zen (2017), which was later re- structured into Dapper Labs. This collectible pet game inherits design features of earlier pet games such as Neopets (Powell & Powell, 1999), as summarized in Ar- ticles II and V. In CryptoKitties, players breed, trade, and gift cartoon cats. Each ‘kitty’ is unique, represented by a non-fungible token on the Ethereum blockchain. The game reached one million ’kitties’ in September 2018, and approximately two million by the end of 2023 (OpenSea, 2018), despite a significant drop in the num- ber of active players (DappRadar, 2023; KittyHelper, 2022). The game remains somewhat active at the time of writing late in 2023, but with very few players still interacting with it according to open data on the blockchain. 24 Acta Wasaensia Arguably the most exciting period of the game’s existence lasted from November 2017 to November 2018. During this time, the game’s core smart contract, known as the ’Kitty Clock’, was generating new ’kitties’ and placing them in a reverse auction. These ’kitties’ were considered ’Generation 0’ (Gen 0) by the rules of the game: next generations were achievable by breeding them, but they were much less valuable. Players would purchase Gen 0 ’kitties’ as soon as they became affordable, setting an initial benchmark for their market value (see Articles II, V). This period ended with a significant crash in the cryptocurrency market, which co- incided with a minor peak in the game just before November 30, 2018. At this time, many players were rushing to get a Gen 0 before it was too late. This was the last significant peak of player activity: the number of active players only diminished since. Such as, the game had approximately 5,000 monthly active players in the third quarter of 2019, and about 3,000 in the third quarter of 2020 when the data for this research was collected. Interestingly, I observed relatively modest changes in the prices of NFTs during major swings in the prices of Ether (Articles I, IV, V). This suggests that the market value of NFTs is primarily mediated by cryptocurren- cies and is largely detached from real money trade. Throughout the game’s history, the prices have gradually declined, as can be seen on player analytics platforms like KittyHelper.co. In the first half of 2019, it was possible to buy a cute, relatively rare Gen 0 ’kitty’ for about 1 ETH or trade directly with a willing owner. A year later, similar ’kitties’ were exactly half as expensive in ETH. In October 2019, the cheapest Gen 0 was on sale for 0.33 ETH, which was 0.0079 ETH less than its initial price. In October 2020, the cheapest Gen 0 was on sale for 0.4 ETH, 0.0492 ETH less than its initial price. Since the end of 2020, the range of prices has been too wide, and the number of sales too few, to draw clear conclusions. The number of daily active users (DAU), or more precisely, unique active wallets (UAW), has also been slowly decreasing, from an average of 200- 300 in 2019-2020 to around 10 or fewer in 2023 (DappRadar, 2023; KittyExplorer, 2021; KittyHelper, 2022). This decline is analyzed in Article I of this dissertation. The perceived value of tokens in the game was derived from artificial scarcity (on which see Chapter 3 and Article I). Namely, according to the White Pa-Purr (Cryp- toKitties, 2018), the economy of CryptoKitties was supposed to be based on the limited number of Gen 0 ‘kitties’. Their value was expected to increase once the developers ceased minting them on November 30, 2018. However, this did not oc- cur: the price of ’kitties’ has gradually decreased since its peak in November due to the shrinking player base. Consequently, the developers terminated this contract before reaching the promised 50,000 ’kitties’. According to KittyHelper’s data, as of October 15, 2019, there were 38,017 Gen 0 ‘kitties’ in the game, with approx- imately 8% (2,918) of them on sale. Strangely, the same search on KittyHelper returned only 36,260 Gen 0 kitties as of October 15, 2020, with 2,221 of them on sale. If we choose to believe in the immutability of blockchains, this might suggest 25Acta Wasaensia that these NFTs were converted into fungible CryptoKitties tokens (WCK) to facili- tate trading, even despite their relative rareness. The remaining 10,000 or more Gen 0 ’kitties’ are anticipated to be released when player numbers increase, but that time has not yet arrived. Since then, new ‘kitties’ only appear in the game as a result of breeding and occasionally, special events. The long-term solution for artificial scarcity in CryptoKittes’ design was realized through a complex breeding mechanic borrowed from monster breeding games. Each ‘kitty’ can have up to 11 different traits, or ’cattributes’, which are expressed in the colors and shapes of its body (as elaborated in more detail in Articles I and II). Each trait is defined b y s o-called ’ genes’, w hich a re c ode f ragments o n the blockchain (see also Gupta, Ramesh, & Mishra, 2022). The game’s complex trait system somewhat masks its essential probabilistic na- ture, with only a few skill elements, which are entirely external to the game design (Serada, 2020c). In comparison, Diana Qiao, in her evaluation of potential legal issues and regulations applicable to CryptoKitties, perceives it as a purely recre- ational activity: “...if one were to play with the intent to profit by breeding unique kitty breeds, this would pose gambling issues rather than securities or commodities regulation” (Qiao, 2020, p. 221). Interestingly, this is exactly how CryptoKitties are played, according to my research observations reported in Article I, and as de- scribed in corporate promotional texts (cited e.g. in Article II of this dissertation). This stresses once again that it is impossible to fully understand the game without having participated in it. More specifically, breeding happens between two ’kitties’ selected by the player, provided they are not closely related. It requires a significant b reeding f ee paid in Ether. A large portion of this fee is used to create or ’mint’ a new ’kitty’ on the blockchain. This new ’kitty’ will have a random combination of attributes in- herited from its parents. If players carefully choose the parents using their expert knowledge of the game, they might, though with a small probability, produce a new ’kitty’ with rare and desirable traits. The goal of breeding is to acquire new traits and appearance variations while they remain rare on the market, and sell the result- ing ’kitties’ at a profit. A more detailed explanation of the trait system can be found in Articles IV and V and my external short paper (Serada, 2020c), which also draws parallels with gambling. The second playable mechanic in the game is peer-to-peer trading. ’Kitties’ can be traded for Ether (and sometimes other tokens such as WCK) both on the game’s own marketplace and outside of it, such as at OpenSea, to benefit from lower trans- action fees. Whenever possible, trading takes the form of speculation(J. Lee, Yoo, & Jang, 2019), that is, deliberately creating a situation where the token can be sold at a higher financial value than the cost to obtain i t (also see page 40). Strategies for creating such situations are described in most detail in Article III of this dis- sertation. Speculation with CryptoKitties requires impressive technical and social 26 Acta Wasaensia skills to break even. This way of gaming is described as ’treacherous play’ in the context of game studies, further explained in Chapter 3 (see page 37). Besides, substantial financial investments are needed to make a profit, as shown in Article V. Consequently, CryptoKitties is not a play-to-earn game, much like slots are not an income-generating activity. As ‘kitties’ are breadable by design, artificial scarcity soon gave way to natural abundance, which made majority of this supply of ’kitties’ on the market nearly worthless (Serada et al., 2021). Economically speaking, most ’kitties’ on the market possess negative value as they are unsaleable and the breeding fee has already been paid. To address this issue, in 2019 non-fungible tokens could be ’wrapped’ - turned into interchangeable fungible tokens named Wrapped CryptoKitties (WCK) - and traded like a currency on the DeFi platform Uniswap (KotoWars, 2019). This added a new layer of speculation with assets and the chance mechanics of unwrapping a large number of unspecified tokens. However, it also made the process more similar to cryptocurrency trading, as outlined in Article II (Serada, 2020b). Likely influenced by crypto trading practices that exploit information asymmetry (Daian et al., 2020), avoicance of transparency was cultivated in the game from the beginning . The rules were encoded, but not codified in a game guide, during the game’s first year. Instead, players gradually discovered the game rules by ‘doing their own research’ (see page 44): they followed hints from the publisher’s official blog and social media, deciphered the game code, made guesses about new traits, created custom add-ins for the web interface, and even developed bots to be the first to obtain ‘kitties’ with new and rare traits. This practice of play can be seen as a lack of transparency and, therefore, fairness for players without coding skills (Sako, Matsuo, & Meier, 2021). Additionally, the randomness and transparency of generating new ’kitties’ have been questioned (Gupta et al., 2022). According to the game developers’ intent, CryptoKitties’ fairness was supposed to be ensured through decentralization, disintermediation, and transparency. In prac- tice, these blockchain attributes have been compromised, just as in any other social application of blockchain. Specifically, CryptoKitties has been found (re-)centra- lized in all aspects, whether technologically (Jiang & Liu, 2021) or legally (Ducu- ing, 2019). Regardless of decentralization claims, the publisher controls several crucial wallets used for technical purposes, such as issuing new ’kitties’ and host- ing the smart contract that produces fungible ’wrapped CryptoKitties’ (Ducuing, 2019; Lu et al., 2023). The process of ‘minting’ the most valuable Generation 0 ’kitties’ has remained under control of the publisher since the game’s inception, as described in most detail in Articles I and V. According to the game rules set in smart contracts, new genes or traits are no longer introduced, as some are meant to be scarce (CryptoKitties, 2018)). However, new visual traits are continuously introduced to keep the deflationary market active (see Article IV). On their side, the player community has responded by their own strategies of value construction, 27Acta Wasaensia such as discovering visual patterns in the existing ’kitties’ (on which see Article V). Although this was a positive development, it was not exactly transparent on a blockchain. ’Minting’ and breeding unique kitties on the blockchain was a notable aspect of the game’s early history and even became the subject of a digital art installation (Cryp- toKitties Team, 2018a). Beyond these, the game itself offers limited interactivity, which is additionally burdened by the blockchain-based nature of the game. As for the monetization model, CryptoKitties operates on a ’pay to play’ basis, similar to coin-operated arcade and slot machines (see Article I for more details). Due to its decentralized design, almost every action in the game requires a fee paid in the cryptocurrency Ether. This includes breeding, trading, putting the token for sale, or even giving it away for free. Even transactions that do not create additional value, such as putting a token on sale, are not free. Their cost depends on the state of the Ethereum network at any given time. For instance, according to blockchain data, the game slowed down significantly but did not s top in summer 2020 when the Ethereum network was congested (Jordan, 2020, also see Article II). This just means that some players paid enormous fees to keep on playing. During periods of high traffic, l ike in December 2017 and summer 2020, the fee for any transaction could easily reach the equivalent of tens of euros or even more (Gogo, 2020). There are two types of fees: in-game fees taxed by publishers and transaction fees paid to miners. For example, a birth fee is paid to ’mint’ a new ’kitty’, and the publisher receives a small fraction of this fee as passive income. In 2019, an exploit was discovered that allowed ’autobirthers’ to collect a fraction of the birth fee. As a result, the publishers had to implement a new smart contract to prevent this practice (CryptoKitties Team, 2019)14 . This is technologically similar to ‘arbitrage bots’ in cryptocurrency trading (Daian et al., 2020), which confirms the link between crypto markets and crypto games (also see Article II). Given the numerous technical flaws o f t he e merging g enre a nd t he h igh c osts of participation, it is understandable that most players left CryptoKitties after the initial excitement. However, it is even more significant that some players still remain. This brings back the main question of this dissertation. What value do players find in CryptoKitties? How is this value created, and by whom? Do we need a new theory of value to fully understand the NFT market, and which existing theories are most suitable? Lastly, why should we be concerned with NFTs in games at all? 14Such exploits are not entirely new in online gaming, even pre-dating blockchain. For example, in the online multiplayer browser game Ovipets, one player can economically harm another by caring for eggs in a third player’s hatchery. If the second player already has an exclusive contract with the third player for such activity, which also grants them a random monetary reward, the first player deprives the second player of part of their contractual in-game income by assisting the third player. In the CryptoKitties exploit, a similar scheme is reproduced, but the second player in the scheme is replaced by a smart contract that provides monetary rewards to the publisher. 28 Acta Wasaensia 3 PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES This dissertation explores the value of digital assets on blockchain, following di- rections and perspectives on their value outlined by previous studies of games and virtual worlds. Scholarly attention to this topic began in the 2000s, during the early proliferation of virtual worlds and massively multiplayer online games (MMOs). During my own research, between 2020 and 2024, a compact but informative body of publications also emerged on games where digital assets are represented by non- fungible tokens (NFTs). This section identifies gaps in the research literature and provides an overview of the research tradition related to virtual economies before and after the introduction of blockchains to gaming communities. The literature’s focus and selection criteria are the convergence of virtual and real economies, as this feature appears to be central to NFTs in games, as laid out in section 2.5. Although the trade of in-game items for virtual and real money has been studied for over two decades, the literature review conducted for this dissertation revealed that empirical studies of virtual economies in existing games were seldom referenced in academic studies of crypto games at the time of writing. This conclusion is based not only on my research but also on comprehensive literature reviews of NFTs in gaming (Arnedo-Moreno & Garcia-Font, 2022; Egliston & Carter, 2023; Yang & Wang, 2023), as well as scholarly reviews of popular blockchain-based games (e.g. Min et al., 2019). 3.1 Blockchain epistemologies: normative and de- scriptive This section presents an overview of theoretical perspectives on the value NFTs in games in the academic literature published during the time of writing this disserta- tion. As I was one of the first researchers to publish on this topic, new literature conveniently emerged in parallel with my own research. In 2018, when it began, only a few academic publications on blockchain-based games and NFTs were avail- able. For instance, Usman Chohan was one of the first to academically discuss NFTs in the context of play and leisure (Chohan, 2017). His working paper refer- enced above proposed that CryptoKitties, a newly released game at that time, could illustrate both the potential impact and limitations of technologies when blockchain platforms compete with traditional gaming platforms. This perspective became the leading direction of my research at its beginning, and the later update of this paper resonated with my own conclusions (Chohan, 2024). 29Acta Wasaensia Between 2017 and 2024, a significant b ody o f s cientific li terature wa s published on the topic of NFTs, as follows from the preliminary systematic literature review by Yang and Wang (2023) as well as a breadth of publications that appeared later (Barondeau, Guitton, Masoumi, & Campos, 2023; Dylan-Ennis, 2024; Egliston & Carter, 2023; Tavares et al., 2023; Zaucha, 2024; Zaucha & Agur, 2023). In the remainder of this chapter, I provide a brief thematic review of articles on value con- struction in crypto games, which were either included in Yang and Wang’s review or cited my own work as I was writing my dissertation. If there was ever a thesis that practically writes itself, this is it. Altogether, the literature on NFTs is divided between two distinct epistemologies that exist in blockchain studies in general. These epistemologies share more or less the same ontological grounding, which has been described in Chapter 2. Broadly speaking, ontology is what we believe exists in the world, and epistemology is what and how we can know it (e.g. Grix, 2004, p. 66). As it was made clear in section 2.3, this dissertation finds itself within the constructivist ontology, more particular, the ’flat ontology’ suggested by the Actor-Network Theory (Latour, 1992, 2007; Law, 2008). Most of blockchain research concerned with societal aspects of blockchain is equally constructivist and often STS- and ANT-adjacent (see e.g. A. Hayes, 2019; Lagendijk, Hillebrand, Kalmar, van Marion, & van der Sanden, 2019). Epistemologically, however, the academic literature on NFTs in games can be sorted into two distinct camps, which differs in the ways how academic knowledge about human-blockchain assemblages is produced. The first epistemology, which I will label normative blockchain studies, approaches blockchains with speculative think- ing, which is often future-oriented, and inspired by agendas of blockchain enthusi- asts. Normative blockchain studies are also often very critical towards the current state of society and global economics, which many of them hope to improve with blockchains. The first ever academic publication on bitcoin is of that nature (Aron, 2012). Weirdly enough, this is how my own research in Article I is often perceived due to its somewhat misleading title proposed by another coauthor. The second epistemology, which will be labeled as descriptive blockchain stud- ies, begins with the observable empirical reality of the already existing blockchain applications and digital traces of their use in the past. As a result of empirical inquiry, most descriptive studies of blockchains arrive at the increasingly critical conclusions about the factual contribution of blockchains to society and economics in their current state. An early example can be found in the paper that demonstrates how double spending, the allegedly solved problem most frequently mentioned in the agendas of blockchain enthusiasts, is actually possible in Bitcoin (Karame, An- droulaki, & Capkun, 2012) (this vulnerability has been fixed since). This is also the perspective that informed my own standing in this dissertation. As alluded to in Chapter 6, the conflict between the normative and descriptive epis- temologies of blockchain may be resolved in the future if the ’promissory gap’ is 30 Acta Wasaensia closed between how blockchain is described, and how it actually works. Some researchers, such as Tian Min, Wei Cai, Usman Chohan, J. Tuomas Harviainen, and myself, have published articles supporting both perspectives, accepting a more descriptive approach as more empirical data became available. In the same way, some authors approach the topic with the attitude of blockchain enthusiasm, but their data often reveals the flaws and inefficiencies of the NFT market (Ante, 2022; Vidal-Toma´s, 2022; B. White et al., 2022). So far, existing literature reviews demonstrate, both directly and indirectly ((An- doni et al., 2019; Arnedo-Moreno & Garcia-Font, 2022; Taherdoost, 2023; Yang & Wang, 2023; Yli-Huumo, Ko, Choi, Park, & Smolander, 2016)), that the majority of blockchain research has been normative, rather than descriptive. This bias is rec- ognized in publications that stem from the normative blockchain studies, as well. For example, Lana Swartz describes such projects as “a form of utopian science fiction” (Swartz, 2017, p. 82). Based on the analysis of the Blockchain Research Network’s publication database, Quinn DuPont concluded that “Only 4% of pub- lished research on cryptocurrencies and blockchains describe a research method- ology” (DuPont, 2020) within the first decade of blockchain and cryptocurrency research. Finally, a scoping review by blockchain enthusiasts Arnedo-Moreno and Garcia-Font (2022) outlines the need for further research in the field of blockchain in video games. Interestingly, only 10 out of the 39 selected papers for this review are based on empirical data, with the remaining papers representing the normative speculative epistemology. Calls for more substantial empirical research are com- monplace, which was also the motivation behind this dissertation. While speculative research can stimulate the imagination beyond ’capitalist real- ism’ (e.g. Allon, 2018; Beckert, 2013; Sotoudehnia, 2019; Swartz, 2017), it also brings about significant ethical challenges to be discussed below in Chapter 4. In its most extreme speculative forms, the normative epistemological approach in block- chain studies takes the shape of ’technological utopianism’ (H¨ utten & Thiemann, 2018); on the other hand, some blockchain enthusiasts embrace and appropriate this characterization (Potts, 2024). This vision is sometimes co-created with study participants or other stakeholders invested in these envisioned futures (Almohsen, Ghaidaa, & Alharthi, 2022; Pfeiffer et al., 2020). In some cases, research is con- ducted in a way to affirm the validity of future blockchain projects. This can involve asking leading questions about potential, albeit possibly unlikely, future scenarios instead of examining players’ actual experiences with an existing functional product (Paajala et al., 2022). Tanja Sihvonen’s contribution to this dissertation was initially sliding into this direction, as can be seen from the last paragraph of our coauthored paper that she presented at DiGRA (Sihvonen, Serada, & Harviainen, 2019). Such strategies are not new in the broader perspective of STS as well as ANT. They manifest the translation of innovation, as described by Latour (1987): this is the first stage of recruiting allies who would invest their faith and funding into the 31Acta Wasaensia new technology without questioning its factual properties. This behavior may be motivated by the structure of academic funding, which was probably influenced by the peak in public attention (see Figure 1), as well as other opportunities that created conflicts of interests (DuPont, 2020). 3.2 On the value of NFTs in games While normative blockchain studies rarely discuss how crypto games are actually played, they still provide an insight into the intentions of blockchain game design- ers, some of whom address the existing concerns and insecurities of gamers (see section 3.4). In these critical utopias, the value in blockchain-based games is antic- ipated to be co-created by the community (Mataruna-dos Santos & Wanick, 2019; Min et al., 2019; Yuen et al., 2019). NFTs are expected to secure property rights (Chen, 2020; Silva & Omar, 2021) and even make virtual objects inheritable (Cai & Wu, 2019; Min et al., 2019). Novel virtual economies could potentially benefit from decentralization (Min et al., 2019; Yuen et al., 2019), transparency (Komiya & Nakajima, 2019; Min et al., 2019) and interoperability (Arnedo-Moreno & Garcia- Font, 2022; Cai & Wu, 2019; Min et al., 2019; Pillai et al., 2019) - that is, the tech- nical possibility to use the same game asset in different games. Provable ownership and interoperability across virtual worlds are the most common topics of specula- tions about utility-based value (use value) of NFTs both in academic discourse and within the community of blockchain enthusiasts. The normative epistemology of blockchain research has its roots in earlier explo- rations of cyberspace (Carr, 2000; Lessig, 2000; Szabo, 1997), which means that it naturally shares some of the ideological underpinnings with the area of game stud- ies focused on virtual economies (Castronova, 2003; Lastowka & Hunter, 2003). Both pay close attention to economic models like play-to-earn and pay-to-win (see page 23), which is also heralded as the future of blockchain gaming (Almohsen et al., 2022; Chen, 2020; Komiya & Nakajima, 2019; Mataruna-dos Santos & Wanick, 2019). These imaginaries align closely with the neoliberal ideas expressed e.g in Castronova (2003, 2005, 2008, 2020). In full agreement with Castronova’s consis- tent imaginaries of ’synthetic worlds’, surplus value created in crypto games may be extracted through real money trade (Chen, 2020; Pfeiffer et al., 2020; Silva & Omar, 2021) to provide additional income to players. This principle, however, has been opposed by the real-life gaming communities, as explained in section 3.4. Decentralization is at the core of most projects of peer-to-peer value creation on blockchain (Filippi de & Hassan, 2016; Swan, 2015; Vigna & Casey, 2018). Speak- ing of NFTs in games, not all projects advocate for total decentralization; some emphasize transparency instead (Komiya & Nakajima, 2019). In resulting projects, the game company can issue and track the exact number of tokens needed for the 32 Acta Wasaensia game’s meticulously planned economy (Chen, 2020; Pfeiffer et al., 2020). Still, this approach contrasts with the complete decentralization and disintermediation of blockchains as outlined in section 2.1. Transparency of blockchain is also expected to create value for gamers. As dis- cussed in section 3.4, parties involved in the real money trade of virtual goods and services often face trust issues and fraud, which is sometimes considered part of the game. One proposed solution to this unregulated real money trade is the introduc- tion of controllable and verifiable tokens (Pfeiffer et al., 2020), which aligns with some of the more positive gamers’ views on microtransactions analysed by Lin and Sun (2011). However, Ben Egliston and Marcus Carter’s study of blockchain enthu- siasts in the gaming industry concluded that their arguments could not convincingly demonstrate why blockchain platforms are more beneficial for the gaming industry than other technology platforms (Egliston & Carter, 2023). A common value proposition from more measured blockchain enthusiasts is the true ownership facilitated by blockchain controllability (see page 16). This promise appeals to gamers who have amassed significant virtual property in a game. Despite spending hundreds of hours accumulating this wealth, they have no guarantee from the game publishers - who legally own the game and all its contents - that their virtual property will be preserved indefinitely. However, it is also worth noting that these publishers are held responsible for any unlawful activities on their virtual property under real-world laws. In case of doubt, publishers reserve the right to ban players entirely (typically for misconduct, see Cifrino, 2014), ‘nerf’ their property, usually to balance the game towards new and less wealthy gamers (see Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014), or even shut down the entire virtual world if it is not profitable (see Consalvo & Begy, 2015; Heeks, 2009). All these actions may create liabilities for game publishers if true ownership of game items is acknowledged in the real world (Lehdonvirta & Virtanen, 2010) (see page 42). Many NFT-based game projects hinge on the presumption of controllability for blockchain-based assets. An example of this is found in Min et al, where they state that ”the blockchain system fulfills the ultimate dream of many game players: the items they own in the virtual world are non-fungible, exchangeable, inheritable, and independent of the game service provider” (Min et al., 2019). However, it is vital to recognize that this dream is a social construct of the make-believe kind. Control- lability of crypto assets is easily undermined by other technical features of block- chain, such as disintermediation and pseudonymity, and less advertised aspects like limited data storage and slow on-chain transactions, as noted, for example, in (Qiao, 2020, p. 179) (see also section 2.1). This has been a summary of normative visions of value construction in games on blockchain. In my own research for this dissertation, I align with descriptive block- chain studies, which are based on empirical evidence about the properties of actually existing blockchains, while acknowledging the blockchain discourse and agenda as 33Acta Wasaensia secondary data. Following the suggestion of Egliston and Carter, I focus less on the ’technophilic and hyperbolic discourse’ (Egliston & Carter, 2022, p. 16) of investors and companies, and more on their actions – how these visions become re- ality. Many of such studies are quantitative and positivist, rather than interpretative. However, as long as social reality is taken into account, descriptive blockchain stud- ies adopt some or another form of the ’critical realism’ paradigm, which interprets observable outcomes through a hermeneutic understanding lens (Grix, 2004, p. 84). To start with, it has been observed that the affordances of NFTs have been uti- lized in line with tendencies towards gamblification ( Scholten e t a l., 2019), such as skin wagering in CS:GO (Abarbanel & Macey, 2019) 15 . Next, significant is- sue is the information asymmetry between technology specialists and newcomers (Arnedo-Moreno & Garcia-Font, 2022), which undermines fairness in CryptoKit- ties in particular (Gladyshev & Wu, 2020; Gupta et al., 2022; Sako et al., 2021). Security issues in crypto games are frequently addressed (e.g. Gao et al., 2023; Min & Cai, 2019), and usability concerns are raised (Gladyshev & Wu, 2020). Other re- curring research topics include the factual centralization of the NFT market (Jiang & Liu, 2021; Nadini et al., 2021; Pinna et al., 2019) and the emergence of new, potentially harmful intermediaries in place of alleged disintermediation (Ducuing, 2019; Gladyshev & Wu, 2020). Much like the studies of virtual worlds, most comprehensive discussions about value are found in legal studies. legal practitioners are the first on the digital bat- tlefront to deal with deception and fraud, such as virtual property theft and money laundering. Legal practitioners are often the first to confront deception and fraud in the digital world, such as virtual property theft and money laundering. To- day, they address numerous misconceptions perpetuated in communities of block- chain adopters (Ducuing, 2019; Fairfield & Selvadurai, 2022; Low & Mik, 2020; Moringiello & Odinet, 2021; Qiao, 2020), as well as new types of fraud facilitated by smart contracts (Guidi & Michienzi, 2022; Rohr, 2019; Scharfman, 2023; Wang et al., 2020). Finally, the latest empirical research focuses on the play-to-earn economic model in games, drawing on previous studies of gold farming (De Jesus et al., 2022; Delfab- bro et al., 2022; Delic & Delfabbro, 2022; Lai et al., 2023; Lu et al., 2023; Zaucha & Agur, 2023). This research emerged after the majority of the data collection and analysis for this dissertation was completed, and so far, it has only corroborated my findings. As discussed in section 3.4, these models of play-to-earn and pay-to- win, which are not exactly new, conflict with traditional perspectives on the value of games. However, both investments and cash-outs in real-world money have become normalized in the context of crypto gaming, which is the new development related to blockchain. 15”Skin gambling” in CS:GO is also presented as a positive development by Alexander Mirowski and, unsurprisingly, Edward Castronova (Mirowski & Castronova, 2020) 34 Acta Wasaensia Generally, the research in play-to-earn games has shed light on the processes of value extraction, rather than creation, and the focus is mostly on exchange value constructed in the process of trading on the cryptocurrency market. The broader issue of value creation received little attention among descriptive blockchain stud- ies, likely because it is difficult to observe and measure empirically. In the wider context of NFT studies, Chohan sees the creation of value in NFTs as a playful manipulation of artificial scarcity, but questions the sustainability of such virtual economies (Chohan, 2021b). In another study, Jack Murray notes that the substitu- tion of physical cards with NFTs in tabletop games fuels speculation, even though speculators often overlook how the community determines the value of these trad- ing cards (Murray, 2021). This aligns with a study by Zaucha and Agur (2022); on NFT collectibles, which contrasts with earlier studies of virtual communities where value is co-created through collective play. At least in some aspects, these observations suggest a multidimensional view of value that includes social and he- donic aspects (Lehdonvirta, 2008; Martin, 2008), particularly significant for playful activities (Dilla, Harrison, Mennecke, & Janvrin, 2013). 3.3 Value construction, co-creation, and extraction in games Games are a unique medium where value for players is created holistically, often in non-transactional ways. In a more general sense, two key characteristics of games are ’autotelicity’ and ’lusory attitude’. Autotelicity means that the activity of play is an end in itself (Stenros, 2017), unlike work, which serves as a means to monetary reward. Games are most often defined as non-instrumental (Giddens, 1964), non- economic Juul (2003), autotelic activities (Stenros, 2017). While some conceptual- izations of games may also account for instrumental purposes (Stenros, 2017), such as educational games (I. Sta˚hl, 1983), ‘serious games’ (Bogost, 2011), advergames (Meigs, 2003) and gambling (Caillois, 1961), gamers as a social group typically play games for the purpose of entertainment. From this perspective, introducing economic motivation into the realm of play can jeopardize the fun aspect of game experience (Johnson & Woodcock, 2019; M¨ antym¨ aki & Merikivi, 2010; Woodcock & Johnson, 2019). In the case of CryptoKitties, it took a lot of effort to discover instances of social play beyond economic motivation (see Articles IV and V). On the other hand, some within the field of game studies, like Castronova (2003, 2020), have advocated for systematically transforming play into work. Neverthe- less, even from this position, instrumentalization and economization of play may be detrimental for the primary goals of the game industry such as “providing content, attracting and retaining users, and earning revenues” (Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014, pp. 83-84), disrupting the proverbial ’magic circle’ of play and, in simple 35Acta Wasaensia words, making games less fun. This is likely the reason why most players deserted CryptoKitties after the initial peak of popularity (see section 2.6), and only a handful of them remained at the end of my observation. The lusory attitude concept presents an alternative to the overused ’magic circle’ metaphor (debates on which are summarised in Juul, 2008; Stenros, 2012). Unlike the latter, the lusory attitude focuses on the player and their actions, rather than the game and its affordances. This concept is explored in relation to game design by Salen and Zimmerman (2004) and at the intersection of philosophy and game studies (Suits, 2005). Lusory attitude can be summarized in simple words as the ‘it’s just a game’ attitude (Sparrow, Gibbs, & Arnold, 2020). It assumes that players participate in the game knowingly and voluntarily, with full awareness of potential consequences (although this is not always the case, see (Trammell, 2020; Wilson & Sicart, 2010)). This attitude also implies that whatever happens in the game stays there, be it deception, violence, harassment, or even fraud and other forms of non-consensual economic transactions of the kind that is routinely observed in blockchain communities (see Chapter 1). While most players participate in multiplayer games for fun and leisure, some may join with the intention of making a profit. T hese p layers t urn i n-game activities into economic and instrumental tasks, aiming to extract value from the game world and other players. This contrasts with the collective value co-creation intended with other players or striving to win a fair competition. In a metaphorical sense, the ’magic circle’ is disrupted by, and for, players who introduce real-world economic concerns into a space initially created for leisure. (see Juul, 2003, 2008). The gap between collective value co-creation and instrumental play in CryptoKitties is explored in Article V. Eventually, convergence of virtual and real economies presents a major challenge for value creation (and the easiest route for value extraction) in virtual worlds, as explained in more detail in section 3.2. From the player’s perspective, the game can be easily ’spoiled’ by actively ignoring its rules and goals (Caillois, 1961; Juul, 2008; Salen & Zimmerman, 2004; Suits, 2005), and these rules and goals in most games are aimed at collective entertainment, rather than profit-making. There are, however, exceptions, also in relation to virtual economies. The ethics of a virtual world or gaming community may conflict with the ethics adhered to in real life (Carter, 2015; C. T. Nguyen & Zagal, 2016; Sicart, 2009). In such cases, the lusory attitude results in a unique ethical disposition, which Gabriels, Bauwens, and Verstrynge (2012) term as ’second morality’: an extension of the lusory attitude to a gamer’s ethics. It specifically includes actions like virtual economic violence, which would be considered immoral in real life. This second morality has been recognized since the creation of Second Life in 1999 (Gabriels et al., 2012), and it can be seen in virtually all online economies, to varying extents. 36 Acta Wasaensia EVE Online is a notable example of an online multiplayer game that directly pro- motes antisocial behavior in the lusory context (Carter, 2015; Dilla et al., 2013; Fairfield, 2008; Sicart, 2009). Marcus Carter has labeled this particular attitude to EVE Online as ’treacherous play’ (Carter, 2015), which is still accepted within the ’magic circle’ of play. A crucial prerequisite for a lusory attitude appears to be voluntary engagement in a leisure activity. This activity is ’encapsulated’ in a specific social frame, as de- scribed by (see Stenros, 2012). For instance, the second morality of EVE Online is made clear through game paratexts (Carter, 2015). This prepares new players for economic violence. Moreover, direct cashing out is prohibited, preventing the theft of other players’ digital property as a source of income (unlike credit card fraud or NFT fraud). The case of CryptoKitties is somewhat special among other crypto games, as it was not a play-to-earn game and could not serve as a source of income for the absolute majority of its players. 3.4 Convergence of virtual and real economies in game studies Users of a shared virtual space will inevitably explore all kinds of relationships within it (Yee, 2006b), many of which will be transactional. A virtual economy can be defined as the entirety of all transactions in a game or virtual world where value exchange is facilitated through virtual or real-world currency The evolution of mas- sively multiplayer games (MMOs) and virtual worlds has introduced innumerable ways of value creation, as well as economic and ethical challenges for their play- ers and inhabitants. Later crypto games were often inspired by these examples, but never reached the same level of engagement and dedication at the time of writing. Lehdonvirta and Castronova define a virtual economy as “an economy that is based on scarce digital resources” (Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014, p.2), aligning with the neoclassical understanding of market valuation based on supply and demand (Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014, p.57). While this model suits practical purposes in vitro, the law of supply and demand rarely explains, nor adequately describes, the complex processes of value circulation observed in vivo in virtual worlds (e.g. Ani- mesh, Pinsonneault, Yang, & Oh, 2011; Consalvo, 2007; Dibbell, 2006; Fairfield, 2008; Heeks, 2009; Jakobsson & Taylor, 2003; Lin & Sun, 2011; Martin, 2008; Ma¨ntyma¨ki & Salo, 2011; Nardi & Kow, 2010, etc.). As shown in later publications by Castronova, this reductionism was a political choice motivated by his neoliberal views. Despite this, I frequently refer to Virtual Economies (2014) throughout this dissertation, as it provides the most detailed model of what blockchain-based virtual economies should look like, according to those who have built them. 37Acta Wasaensia For the purpose of this study, economic violence is defined as the non-consensual extraction of economic value from one player by another16 . Within both blockchain and game studies, economic violence is an unfortunate yet solid indicator of previ- ously created value. If a virtual asset held little or no value, a thief would not bother stealing it, and the victim would not feel violated if the item were lost (see page 17 and Figure 3). This is likely the reason why there was next to no direct economic violence in CryptoKitties (see section 2.6). Economic violence is always present in virtual economies at least to some extent, occasionally in rather peculiar forms. When exploring all possible interactions with a virtual world or game, some players might extract value without significantly contributing to the virtual community that inhabits this virtual space. Such prac- tices, however, may violate the unwritten rules that govern value creation in games (see also Sparrow et al., 2020). There is always a community-established threshold for acceptable violence, including economic violence, as it is generally the rule in competitive gaming (C. T. Nguyen & Zagal, 2016). In EVE Online, for instance, scamming is allowed, but technological exploits are considered unethical (Carter, 2015). In other games and virtual worlds, direct value extraction, such as through bots, has been commonplace since their inception (Boellstorff, 2015; Heeks, 2009). Much like with in-game violence in general (see e.g. Schott, 2016), players in games that allow and promote economic violence are aware of its symbolic and inconse- quential virtual nature, and do not carry this behavior into the real world. They may still apply the skills gained in the game to the real world in a safe and responsible way, like, for instance, Carter’s informants applied social skills developed while scamming other players in EVE Online (Carter, 2015). Although EVE Online provides valuable insights into value construction as well as its forceful extraction, it is an extreme case among other video games. Economic violence is usually prohibited by both implicit and codified laws in online games like World of Warcraft and virtual worlds like Second Life. This is evidenced by the frequency of victims of virtual economic violence taking their cases to real-life courts (Cifrino, 2014; Dilla et al., 2013; Fairfield, 2008; Lehdonvirta & Virtanen, 2010). In most online games, the blurred line between what is permitted and what is not, leans towards milder forms of economic exploitation for value extraction as it is allowed in EVE Online - and also the next generation of blockchain-based games, play-to-earn games, which fall beyond the scope of this thesis (see page 23). In a globalized networked society by a digitized financial system, value can be extracted when play/labor time is bought from the poor to satisfy the needs of the rich: a prac- 16Legal scholar Madison Yoder uses the term ’economic harm’ in relation to the victims of NFT fraud (Yoder, 2022); I use ’economic violence’ to emphasize the perpetrator’s clear intent to inflict harm. 38 Acta Wasaensia tice that has been labeled ‘gold farming’ (Carless, 2007; Consalvo, 2007; Dibbell, 2007; Goggin, 2011; Heeks, 2009; Nardi & Kow, 2010). Gold farming refers to the practice of extracting value through profit-oriented play in a multiplayer game (see e.g. Nardi & Kow, 2010). As soon as there is demand, there are also offers from players, typically from disadvantaged backgrounds (Heeks, 2009), eager to play for money. This “differs little from, say, a Filipino overseas contract worker” (Lastowka & Hunter, 2003). Such an activity is neither leisurely nor entirely vol- untary, which means that the entertainment value of the game for the hired players diminishes. The shadow labor market is particularly well afforded by massively multiplayer role-playing games (MMO RPGs), which have long been likened to work (Yee, 2006a). Already at the dawn of the genre, some players of EverQuest would treat it “as a job, as work, not play” (Castronova, 2003). Recently in Castronova’s unironic vision of the future of gaming, multiplayer games will have a class structure where lower-class players play for money supplied by upper-class players, blessed with generational wealth in the real life (Castronova, 2020). It remains an open question whether gamers would willingly engage in such arrangements without the threat of economic or even physical violence, as is sometimes the case with the aforemen- tioned Filipino overseas contract workers. On the buyer’s side, some gamers opt to purchase game items from other players using real-world money, despite the ”high ethical costs” (Constantiou, Legarth, & Olsen, 2012) associated with buying progress in a multiplayer game. This is known as real money trade (RMT) (Constantiou et al., 2012; Heeks, 2009; Lai et al., 2023). Real money trade in games and virtual worlds has existed long before cryptocur- rencies, and virtual property has always held financial value in virtual economies (Cifrino, 2014; Lastowka & Hunter, 2003; Lehdonvirta, 2008; Silva & Omar, 2021). An early example of virtual economic activity seeping into the real-world economy is found in EverQuest (1999), one of the first MMO RPGs to become popular (Cas- tronova, 2003; Jakobsson & Taylor, 2003). Some (albeit very few) contemporary video games support RMT and offer official trading platforms, such as Counter- Strike: Global Offensive and Fantasy Westward Journey. The same technological affordances also enable gambling and speculation in CS:GO, occasionally involv- ing blockchain and cryptocurrencies (Abarbanel & Macey, 2019; Macey & Hamari, 2019). The ethics and economics of multiplayer gaming are usually in conflict with the ability to make purchases with real-world money to influence the outcome of the game (’pay-to-win’) (Cifrino, 2014; Paajala et al., 2022; Qiao, 2020). Many vir- tual economies, particularly in MMO RPGs, determine the value of in-game assets based on the time required to acquire them. Consequently, the best rewards are re- served for those who have spent the most time playing the game and have shown dedication. Hardcore gamers tend to despice those who obtained the same awards 39Acta Wasaensia with less dedication, simply by paying money (Consalvo, 2007; Lin & Sun, 2011; Tavares et al., 2023). Eventually, ’gold farming’ disturbs virtual economies for the participants that are at least trying to ’play if fair’ (Constantiou et al., 2012; Lehdon- virta & Castronova, 2014; Nardi & Kow, 2010). This brings up the question of ’fair play’ as the anthisesis of cheating. Fair play adheres to both the formal game rules secured by the technology behind the game and the fluid implicit rules within a player community (Fairfield, 2008; Fairfield & Selvadurai, 2022). Within the lusory attitude, gamers see the practice of buying play labor or its results as gaining unfair advantage (Constantiou et al., 2012; Heeks, 2009; Nardi & Kow, 2010), and, therefore, cheating (Consalvo, 2007; Lehdonvirta, 2008). This idea is particularly prevalent among ’true gamers’ who believe in progressing through a game entirely on their own (Consalvo, 2007, p. 88, 96). In comparison, casual mobile gamers may be more accepting towards in- game purchases that boost their progress (Kinnunen, Alha, & Paavilainen, 2016; Mataruna-dos Santos & Wanick, 2019; Nielsen, 2020). 3.5 Value and its extraction in a sociotechnical ludic assemblage As outlined in section 2.3, when viewed from a sociotechnical perspective of ANT, blockchain-based games offer greater agency to their technological actants due to the ambition of decentralization (according to their designers and proponents, see section 3.2). More interesting relationships between the social construction of value and the material affordances of play are expected to emerge from these decentral- ized ludic assemblages. Therefore, it needs to be clarified what exactly block- chain affordances facilitate in decentralized games more efficiently than centralized servers and databases or the ’coding authority’ who controls the game economy (Castronova, 2003). So far, the answer has been cashing out the value of game rewards and creating (and extracting) value through speculation, which is the most common use of cryp- tocurrencies beyond games. Speculation has been observed in CryptoKitties (see Articles III, V), by other researchers as well (J. Lee et al., 2019). Speculation as a way to create and extract value from games has enjoyed less aca- demic attention than gold farming and RMT. It involves extracting value on a multi- sided market, usually by exploiting price volatility, informational asymmetries or limited access to resources by particular categories of buyers. No play value such as new modifications of goods or additional services is added to the traded assets, unlike e.g. value creation through modding. Prices can also be inflated e.g. by wash trading (Pennec, Fiedler, & Ante, 2021). 40 Acta Wasaensia Despite its rich history the a capitalist society (Fraser, 2009), speculation is rarely studied through the critical lens. In the neoliberal-tinted perspective on virtual mar- kets, speculation falls under the umbrella of value-extracting practices that Lehdon- virta and Castronova neutrally label as ’arbitrage’. Essentially, speculation is buy- ing low and selling high for profit (Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014, pp. 71-72). Arbitrage as a concept and as a practice is also a significant part of cryptocurrency trading (Daian et al., 2020; Makarov & Schoar, 2020). From this viewpoint, gold farming described above can also be conceptualized as arbitrage of labor on the free global market of services. A multu-sided critical approach, however, should also take the interests of other players and the state of the entire virtual environment into account, which includes other types of non-monetary value for entertainment. Even when speculation does not harm other users directly, speculative value extraction is detrimental for the vir- tual economy at large (see e.g. Boellstorff, 2015). For instance, prices of virtual property may skyrocket beyond the reach of an average buyer who is not involved in speculation, which is typical for blockchain-based virtual worlds such as Decen- traland (Bao & Roubaud, 2024; Goldberg & Sch¨ ar, 2023). Ethical validity of speculation in a virtual world or a video game has been a sub- ject too niche for game studies. However, it has been a common practice in all virtual worlds that permit peer-to-peer trade, either legally or through ‘gray’ or ‘black’ markets for real-world money (Boellstorff, 2015; Dibbell, 2003; Dilla et al., 2013; Lehdonvirta, 2008). This phenomenon is frequently mentioned in first-hand accounts of multiplayer games (Boellstorff, 2015; Dibbell, 2006). For example, Tom Boellstorff describes speculation with virtual land in the early years of Second Life in the way that mirrors contemporary blockchain-based virtual worlds such as Sandbox and Decentraland (Bao & Roubaud, 2024), and even the Bored Apes Yacht Club (Fairfield & Selvadurai, 2022). More specifically, Boellstorff discusses ’land bots’ programmed ”quickly purchase property that had mistakenly been set for sale at a low price” (Boellstorff, 2015, p. 131). In one instance, a buyer who did this was banned from Second Life by Linden Labs, leading him to unsuccessfully sue the company for violating his property rights (Cifrino, 2014; Dilla et al., 2013). The similarities between value extraction practices suggest a need for further investigation into what is truly innovative in blockchain-based games. Fraudulent behavior and speculation in virtual worlds are often linked to the player’s or user’s ability to convert virtual assets into real assets through real money trading. This feature defines ”open games” as per Dilla et al. (2013). Examples in this cat- egory include EverQuest, Second Life, Ultima Online, EVE Online, and, naturally, all crypto games (see section 2.5). Conversely, it has been noted that the motivation for fraudulent behavior changes when cashing out is no longer an option (Dilla et al., 2013). 41Acta Wasaensia In capitalist states, speculation is not considered a crime, as it was, for example, in the Soviet Union. However, it often involves gaining an ’unfair advantage’, which is akin to cheating in games. By adopting cryptocurrencies for the purpose of value exchange, the crypto community seems to have legitimized speculation in crypto games; besides, it revitalized the ’play-to-earn’ business model, which is not partic- ularly new. These innovations are not accepted by hardcore gamers (Tavares et al., 2023). However, in personal conversations with crypto game developers, I once saw the hope that speculators would eventually become gamers if the games become fun enough (see also Article VI). In the case of CryptoKitties, speculation was one of the main skills that a dedicated player would learn (Article II). 3.6 Lusory attitude in virtual economies before and after blockchain A common topic in the discussion of blockchain controllability and verifiability is the true ownership of in-game property (see Article I of this dissertation), presented as an antithesis to the in-game assets owned by game publishers even when con- trolled by gamers. In the eyes of their enthusiastic adopters, distributed blockchain systems offer superior and more efficient models of ownership and governance in virtual worlds and games (Andersen & Bogusz, 2019; Hargrave et al., 2019; Vidal- Tom´ as, 2022). Advocacy for true ownership in virtual worlds and games can be found as early as in Fairfield (2008). According to him, “If virtual-world inhabi- tants have property interests in accounts or avatars then those interests are enforce- able against the world” (Fairfield, 2008, p. 451). From a game studies perspective, however, true ownership contradicts lusory atti- tude towards virtual property in games. Moreover, developers of this property can be sued for e.g.‘nerfing’17 it for the sake of better game experience for everyone and especially the newcomers. For this reason, it is against the interest of virtual world creators and owners to pass ownership rights to players, due to potential real-world liabilities for players’ virtual losses (Lehdonvirta, 2008; Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014; Lehdonvirta & Virtanen, 2010), as in the case of Linden Labs (Cifrino, 2014). Besides, disintermediation of blockchains makes average players even more prone to economic violence and exploitation. Unregulated virtual economies and black markets may lead to degradation of game experience (Castronova, 2003; Constan- tiou et al., 2012; Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014; Nardi & Kow, 2010). This has been observed in crypto games, such as Axie Infinity (De Jesus et al., 2022) and CryptoKitties (Jiang & Liu, 2021). Heeks links the normalization of deception and 17Nerfing can be defined as ”the operator’s act of adjusting game balance, usually by reducing the abilities or attributes of some game asset, resulting in its depreciation” (Lehdonvirta, 2008). 42 Acta Wasaensia fraud to the disintermediation in virtual worlds, even before the advent of block- chain (Heeks, 2009). On the other hand, Castronova, from a neoliberal perspective, views disintermediation as beneficial. He argues that it enables game publishers to bypass restrictive labor laws, thus transforming games into online sweatshops. This, in turn, maximizes profits for technology landlords and enhances enjoyment for the affluent (Castronova, 2020). Similar to NFT communities (see Chapter 1), investment scams, Ponzi schemes, and misappropriation of property have always happened in virtual worlds and games. These issues are examined in legal studies (Fairfield, 2008; C. J. Hayes, 2008; Kawashima, 2010). Notably, author David Gerard, a Bitcoin skeptic, identifies the same coin doubling scam among crypto holders and in the classic MMO RPG RuneScape (Gerard, 2017, p.39). However, studies on traditional MMO RPGs re- veal that prior to the NFT boom, the process of converting virtual assets into real- world assets was more challenging (Dibbell, 2003, 2006; Lehdonvirta, 2008), be- cause the trade often took place on black markets with very limited technical means for value transfer. The long history of economic crimes in MMOs shows that blockchain and cryp- tocurrencies are not necessary for speculation and ’play-to-earn’ in games. In Heeks’s words, it is almost a miracle that real money trade occurred at all, due to constant ‘information failure’, that is, lack of transparency in communication and valuation of services and goods, which leads to “opportunism and adverse se- lection” (Heeks, 2009). At first glance, cryptocurrencies and blockchain could potentially address certain issues in virtual worlds, if only their technological features worked as advertised. For example, blockchain platforms could streamline and secure peer-to-peer trading in MMOs, which is often conducted in a clandestine manner (Constantiou et al., 2012). This is vividly described by Heeks as “the hasty real-world, black-market, back-alley swap with its attendant concerns from both sides—but especially the buyer—about being scammed, or about being caught” (Heeks, 2009). Particularly in the extreme case of EVE Online (Carter, 2015), two parties in a competitive game have no reason to trust each other (see also Constantiou et al., 2012), and blockchain’s assumed transparency and verifiability could provide a level of trust. An alternative perspective can be found in firsthand accounts from abusers and per- petrators. Based on interviews with these treacherous players, Sparrow et al. pro- pose their own theory of player amorality, termed the “Apathetic Villager Theory.”. According to it, the second morality of virtual worlds may place the responsibility for scams on its victims (Sparrow et al., 2020). As some players put it, “new play- ers have a responsibility to ‘do the research’ to set their expectations appropriately before entering into a game” (ibid.). Therefore, if they are scammed, it is their own fault. This line of thinking mirrors the rationalization of fraudulent acts in a virtual world, as described by Dilla et al. (2013) and Carter (2015). Interestingly, the prin- 43Acta Wasaensia ciple of ‘doing your own research’ (DYOR) is also a key component of the unique ethics in cryptocurrency trading. To sum it up, multiplayer games and virtual worlds are unique in the way how they facilitate value co-creation by player communities (Boellstorff, 2015; C. J. Hayes, 2008; Hemminger & Schott, 2012; Kohler, Fueller, Stieger, & Matzler, 2011; Sher- lock, 2009; M. Sta˚hl & Rusk, 2020), going above and beyond scarcity-based value. Moreover, the social nature of the value constructed within these platforms trans- lates into economic value for the game or virtual world’s publishers. For example, users who feel more connected in a virtual world are typically more willing to in- vest real-world money in it (Animesh et al., 2011; M ¨ antym¨ aki & Merikivi, 2010). According to Dilla et al. (2013), non-monetary achievements and the ability to in- fluence others are also significant motivational factors, indicating that the value of virtual assets extends beyond their exchange value on the market. This can be inter- preted as the pursuit of social status (Constantiou et al., 2012), sometimes by means of conspicuous consumption Martin (2008), with hedonic aspects of perceived value in games also playing an important role Lehdonvirta (2009). The social aspect of value seems to be particularly influential i n p urchase intent (Hamari & Lehdonvirta, 2010; Lehdonvirta, 2008), also on black markets (Con- stantiou et al., 2012). This suggests that the value of assets in a multiplayer game in general has at least three dimensions: economic, social, and aesthetic (hedonic) per- ceived value, specific to a particular player community. This value structure will be revisited in Chapter 5, put in context of value-supporting affordances of blockchain. This leads to the question of value of NFTs in games in particular. 3.7 Bridging the gap between blockchain and game studies Game studies scholars have largely overlooked crypto games to date. This may be due to the relatively small number of players who play these games for entertain- ment. The audience size of the first generation of crypto games (before play-to- earn), with about 200 daily players for CryptoKitties in the first two years of my research, is similar to that of the first multi-user dungeons (MUDs) (Boellstorff, 2015; Crystal, 2006; Yee, 2006b). These were the earliest forms of multiplayer on- line gaming during the internet’s infancy over thirty years ago. However, MUDs initially proliferated in research and education environments (Yee, 2006b), mean- ing that even a small user base would include lifelong game enthusiasts and future researchers of games and virtual worlds. On the other hand, the primary user base for the first generation of crypto games originated from cryptocurrency trading (see Article II), introducing a different set of ideological and practical concerns. 44 Acta Wasaensia Though there is a vast amount of literature on labor exploitation in games, which is briefly reviewed in section 3.4, only a few academic studies have addressed spec- ulation as a means of extracting value in multiplayer games prior to crypto games. A notable example is the autoethnography of grey game marketplaces by Dibbell (2006). However, some consider this account as anecdotal rather than scientific. Studying economic exploitation and violence in this field can be immensely chal- lenging due to ethical issues (see Dittrich & Kenneally, 2012). Additionally, the casual aesthetics, simplified gameplay that doesn’t require game-specific skills or deep knowledge of lore, ethical ambiguity, and financial ties to the real world often lead gamers to view crypto games as ’not real games’ (Consalvo & Paul, 2019) (see also Tavares et al., 2023). While blockchain researchers seldom refer to game studies to explain cryptocur- rency and blockchain paradoxes, there are exceptions such as Kavanagh, Miscione, and Ennis (2019), whose ideas provided the basis for my investigation in Article I of this dissertation. For example, the connection between Bitcoin and role-playing games is exemplified by Mt. Gox (mtgox.com) Kavanagh et al. (2019), which was the first major Bitcoin exchange and one of the most significant fraud cases in Bit- coin’s history (Scharfman, 2023, p.18). As evident from section 3.2, the theory and practice of blockchain are preoccupied with value, its co-creation, and notably, the role of artificial scarcity. However, blockchain studies rarely discuss the unique morality encompassing blockchain-based worlds (see page 36) - likely due to the prevailing normative epistemology. For comparison, the ”Do Your Own Research” (DYOR) principle, foundational to cryptocurrency trading ethics, has already been acknowledged in studies of dark and treacherous play (see page 43). In terms of design, crypto games are similar to conventional collectible, role-play- ing, and gambling games (see section 2.5), which means that previous studies of similar games are mostly applicable to them, as well. This is often overlooked by crypto gamers and journalists, who only encounter the concept of artificial scarcity through crypto games’ white papers. However, this idea has been extensively dis- cussed in earlier literature on virtual worlds, likely inspiring crypto game designers. For instance, during CryptoKitties’ first year, a reverse auction determined the price buyers were willing to pay. In this way, CryptoKitties’ virtual economy designers directly followed the recommendations of Lehdonvirta and Castronova in Virtual Economies (2014). On the other hand, the issues of trust, controllability, immutability, and disinterme- diation in online games have been prevalent since their inception, long before block- chain technology. For instance, Lastowka and Hunter argue that property systems were central to early popular virtual worlds such as The Sims Online and Ultima Online. They suggest that property in virtual worlds mirrors real-world property in aspects like exclusive ownership, persistence of rights, and transferability of prop- erty via mutual agreement or violence, along with a virtual currency (Lastowka 45Acta Wasaensia & Hunter, 2003). Fairfield d iscusses i nteroperatibility, a mong o ther f eatures that make a comeback in the discourse of blockchain enthusiasts. He characterizes in- teroperability as the ability for the longest-playing and most successful players to transfer their in-game property to a different virtual world (Fairfield, 2008, p. 470). In another paper, Hunter and Lastowka highlight the revolutionary decentraliza- tion and disintermediation of creative economies through digital networks, which supposedly occurred in the early 2000s (Lastowka & Hunter, 2003). This rhetoric closely parallels blockchain enthusiasts’ manifestos about value co-creation with NFTs twenty years later . This suggests that studies of games and virtual worlds may already offer answers to some of the questions posed in blockchain and NFT studies, albeit not directly. With their NFT projects, blockchain enthusiasts propose solutions to the problems postulated at the times of rapid development of MMOs (Hunter & Lastowka, 2004; Lastowka, 2010; Lastowka & Hunter, 2003). These problems, however, seem to be social rather than technical; particular affordances of blockchain do not seem to improve the solutions that have already been tested and implemented in MMOs and virtual worlds (Egliston & Carter, 2023; Scheiding, 2022; Tavares et al., 2023). As summarized in section 3.4, value in games takes many forms, some of which are specific to the game and community. While there is transactional and relational exchange value derived from scarcity, the social value co-created within the commu- nity and the hedonic value appreciated by individual members are even more crucial in gaming. Even some of blockchain enthusiasts agree that these values should take precedence in game design and experience as the foundation for economic value in games (Elhanani, 2023; Pfeiffer et al., 2020). This gap in understanding the value of games on the blockchain has motivated the first research question of this disser- tation. RQ1: What constitutes the value of a CryptoKitties NFT? Prior research on virtual economies and games has shown that game-specific value is linked to the goals in the game and players’ attitude to it. Gamers often perceive it as unfair to acquire this value through monetary exchange (see section 3.4). No- tably, perceptions of fairness are negotiable and specific to each community, which manifests the social dimension of value in games. This leads to the second research question of this dissertation. RQ2. How is the fair price of this NFT established on a peer-to-peer marketplace? Blockchain enthusiasts who write on NFTs often focus on specific f eatures like immutability, verifiability, or controllability, which could theoretically create value based on authenticity, as outlined in section 3.2. However, such methods for assign- ing value to CryptoKitties were proven to be either irrelevant or easily disrupted in Article I and Article IV. While theoretical discussions around NFTs in games 46 Acta Wasaensia tend to concentrate on potential co-creation of value, empirical studies often reveal intensive value extraction through speculation and digital labor, like gold farming. Simultaneously, legal scholars become concerned with fraudulent acts of economic violence. This is also how the general public, including gamers, typically learn about NFTs in games (refer to section 1). Still, there must be something else in this promissory gap: the ways and tools of value construction beyond the technological and legal affordances and limitations of blockchain. The third research question of this dissertation invites reconsideration of the value of NFTs in the social context. RQ3. How can the value of NFTs in CryptoKitties be interpreted through other forms of value in society? I treated my research subject as a virtual economy, encompassing all transactions involving cryptocurrencies and other valuable tokens (see page 37). As described in section 2.6, CryptoKitties is a ”money game”: essentially, it is an inventory of 2 mil- lion NFTs at the time of writing. Only the most valuable tokens sporadically change hands via monetary transactions, as shown in Articles III, IV, and V. A customized mix of research methods was needed to explore its social and hedonic value di- mensions beyond the already dubious exchange value of tokens on the market. The techno-social hybridity of blockchain systems (see section 2.1) ultimately shaped my research into a multi-method case study, blending quantitative measurements with qualitative observations of network users’ social behavior. 47Acta Wasaensia 4 DATA AND METHODOLOGY This section details the research data and methods used in the six articles that con- stitute the core this dissertation. Collectively, these articles make up a single case study that utilizes the mixed methods approach. This study resides in the interpre- tive research paradigm, which primarily applies qualitative methodologies in so- cial sciences (Grix, 2004; Moisander, N ¨ arv ¨anen, & Valtonen, 2013; Niglas, 2010). Ethnography, a key research method within this paradigm, and its online counter- part, netnography, are especially useful to understand a deeply culturally embedded digital marketplace: ”Social action such as marketplace activity can only be un- derstood or interpreted based on knowledge of these intentions and social rules” (Moisander et al., 2013, p. 287). The central theme of this dissertation is the value construction in a blockchain-based game. All articles focus on different aspects of non-fungible tokens’ (NFTs) value in CryptoKitties. These aspects include the types and distribution of tokens (Arti- cles III, IV, V), their market price (Articles IV, V), their in-game utility (Articles III, IV, V, VI), how player communities construct their value (Articles IV, V), and how sellers characterize and promote these tokens (Article III). This dissertation is interdisciplinary, merging methods and insights from both game and blockchain studies, using an anthropological approach as the common ground. There have been instances where blockchain studies have drawn on game studies for building economies in virtual worlds (e.g. Kavanagh et al., 2019). In another case, the understanding of games forms the foundation for conceptualizing cryptocurren- cies as a ’money game’ (Hu¨tten & Thiemann, 2018). However, such instances were rare and not particularly developed during this research, and all focused on cryp- tocurrencies, not NFTs. By selecting a cryptocurrency-based game as my research subject, I aim to merge the intellectual daring of blockchain and cryptocurrency studies with insights garnered over the past two and a half decades of research in games and virtual worlds. This research began with a qualitative methodology (Articles I, II) and then inte- grated quantitative measurements (Articles III, IV, V). The mix of qualitative and quantitative methods was necessary to identify the promissory gap between what is said about NFTs in games by players and blockchain enthusiasts, and what actually occurs in the observable and measurable reality of play. The departure point was the neoclassical economic lens of artificial scarcity, and the law of supply and de- mand, applied to studies of virtual economies (Castronova, 2003, 2005; Knowles & Castronova, 2018; Lehdonvirta, 2009; Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014). However, observations quickly revealed that it was impossible to gain an advantage in the game by simply accepting artificial s carcity a t f ace v alue ( Articles I , VI). Moreover, the term ’rarity’ has lost its literal meaning and is mostly used in game 48 Acta Wasaensia discourse to manipulate less experienced players (Article III). Therefore, the actual role of artificial scarcity in the value of in-game objects had to be evaluated quan- titatively. Blockchain’s technological features, such as transparency, immutability, verifiability, and assumed controllability, did not seem to manifest in value cre- ation processes. However, they could be utilized for conducting my research (as discussed in more detail on page 81). The economic principles of virtual economies, as outlined by Castronova and Leh- donvirta, were applied in the analysis of quantitative data (game market data on blockchain), notably in Articles I, VI, and V. Despite game designers’ clear inten- tion of using artificial scarcity as a basis for value creation of virtual goods in this particular game (CryptoKitties, 2018; CryptoKitties Team, 2018e, 2018h, 2019), no significant evidence supported this assumption. Instead, the CryptoKitties market- place exhibited features more commonly associated with ’bazaar economies’ famil- iar to ethnographers (Deka, 2017; Geertz, 1978). Such as, experienced players ac- cepted the information asymmetry on the supposedly transparent blockchain-based marketplace, and maintained it by reliance on informal relationships and the use of bots to automate various aspects of play. After determining that the neoclassical economic model was unsuitable for this spe- cific yet typical case, quantitative methods were implemented for basic evaluation of the game market’s supply and demand. To understand the speculative virtual mar- ketplace, netnography was used as the main method in some articles (Articles II, V, VI) and as a supportive method in others (Articles I, III, VI). Consequently, the re- search paradigm of this dissertation is definitely interpretive, even though the meth- ods are mixed. This way of situating my research on the qualitative-quantitative and exploratory-explanatory continua (Niglas, 2010) proved most effective in un- derstanding the opaque, centralized bazaar economies that arise within the osten- sibly transparent decentralized blockchain. Simultaneously, I critique the methods commonly used to examine blockchain-based solutions. As outlined in section 3.1, blockchain studies pay dedicated attention to virtual economies. However, their methodology often leans towards speculative fiction as the primary mode of intel- lectual exploration. As detailed in section 5.1, I explored additional, specific questions during our re- search. These included: who determines the value of NFTs and who benefits the most from it; whether decentralization introduces democratic governance to the game; and how equipped this new blockchain platform is for collaborative value co-creation. Another question concerning the resemblance to gambling was ad- dressed in the paper Why Is CryptoKitties (Not) Gambling (Serada, 2020c), which is not included in this dissertation as it is a short paper rather than a full one. Ul- timately, answering these questions led the research back to the importance of an anthropological understanding of value in blockchain-based marketplaces. 49Acta Wasaensia 4.1 Research data The primary source for this case study includes various types of qualitative data, such as the researcher’s journal and corporate and player communication (see Ta- ble 2 in section 1.2). This is complemented by quantitative data, including open market data and quantitative measurements of player communication (see Table 3). Table 3. Types of data used in articles. Rules of the game Article № As experienced by players As described by game publishers Researcher’s observations Open market data Player communication Article I X X Article II X X X Article III X X Article IV X X X X Article V X X X Article VI X The rules of the game were described according to two different sources: the im- plicit and explicit rules gathered from the documented experience of gameplay (pri- mary data), and the rules as outlined in official game descriptions and marketing publications (secondary data). References to secondary data sources, such as blog posts, are included throughout the articles and this summary. The documented experience is preserved in a researcher’s journal, which provides detailed accounts of gameplay and player interactions from December 2017 to Jan- uary 2019, with occasional entries from 2020 to 2023. The unchangeable nature of blockchain was beneficial here, as it maintained a history of on-chain interactions. However, off-chain interactions were not preserved, highlighting once again that immutability and transparency are just technosocial constructs within blockchain communities. The quantitative data in this study comprises open data about particular transac- tions involving game tokens (NFTs), sampled from the blockchain ledger between November 2017 and June 2023. Both quantitative and qualitative data were ex- tracted from player communications on Discord, a global platform for instant mes- saging and voice calls used by both traditional gamers and NFT traders. The game’s developer, Dapper Labs, established the official Discord server for CryptoKitties as soon as it entered public beta as the game’s official social networking space. For my research, Discord chat logs from the game’s official server were extracted us- ing Discord Chat Exporter (Holub, 2023) on November 21, 2019, with the approval of the server administrators, who were dedicated players volunteering for the role. These logs were later searched for ’digital traces’ of specific transactions from 2020 to 2023, using particular keywords. Discord itself appears just as valuable as the blockchain ledger, as it preserves mes- sage history as long as the chat’s administrators maintain the server. While spam 50 Acta Wasaensia messages and harassment were likely deleted, and many player accounts have re- tired over the years, the main discussion about the tokens and their value remained accessible to anyone who joined the open server, as of 2023. The only condition to access the official CryptoKitties Discord server was to have an account on Discord, and creation of such an account would only require a working email at the time of my research. The nature of netnographic research lies in accessing publicly shared internet data (Kozinets, 2015, p. 79). Blockchain and cryptocurrencies add more complexity to the interaction between public and private spaces online. One notable example is online drug traders who work to maintain anonymity while building their public reputation (Bancroft & Reid, 2017; Barratt, Ferris, & Winstock, 2016; Han, Duong, Nguyen, & Mier, 2020). In the context of darkner-adjacent internet studies, the Menlo Report states that ”Researchers obtain informed consent when research ac- tivity has the potential to harm individuals with whom a researcher interacts or about whom the researcher obtains identifiable private information” (Dittrich & Kenneally, 2012, p. 7), which was not my case. In the case of CryptoKitties, negotiations often take place privately, yet transaction data is publicly accessible (see Article III). However, I only used public data delib- erately created and shared by reasonably unidentifiable subjects, many of whom are adept at managing their online identities. Even so, my research aim was to analyze specific words and phrases related to value in token descriptions for Article III in particular. This would not require information about the identities of the sellers or their interpersonal relationships. Selected annotated datasets and a codebook are published in open access on Researchgate (Serada, 2023b, 2023e, 2023f). Collecting data through netnographic methods required no formal informed con- tent beyond identifying oneself as a researcher in the online community. I ob- tained informal consent from Discord moderators present at the time to scrape data from Discord to do my own research in scarcity and value of CryptoKitties. This exceeds what is required by ethical guidelines, as I first evaluated the data from Discord using quantitative methods and only selectively used qualitative methods on anonymized samples. Data collection from Discord was performed with a free open-source data scraping tool, Discord Chat Exporter, available on GitHub (Holub, 2023). As part of managing their professional identity, many sellers willingly shared their data, which included their crypto wallet addresses (so potential buyers could exam- ine the entire assortment of tokens). Although I occasionally recorded this data in my journal and datasets, I did not use it in the analysis. The desire for anonymity stemmed not only from community values but also safety concerns. Beyond my research data, I knew of some individuals who had their cryptocurrencies stolen, and were even robbed in real life, unrelated to their participation in CryptoKitties, but potentially related to cryptocurrency trade. 51Acta Wasaensia As explained in detail in section 2.1, transaction data on the blockchain, as well as crypto wallet addresses, are open, transparent, and immutable. Allegedly, this data will be stored for as long as the Ethereum network exists (Finck, 2019), even after my research data is deleted. However, the transparency of blockchain data should not be overestimated. Even in its simplest and most representative form, open market data on the blockchain requires specific a nalytical competences and custom interfaces to be processed and understood. The true meaning of blockchain data remains opaque to common internet users. The list of custom interfaces and blockchain analytics used in this research includes Etherscan, CoinGecko, DappRadar, KittyHelper, CKbox, and OpenSea analytical tools. Crypto gamers and other blockchain adopters master these tools with help from the community or by conducting their own research (like I did). However, forensic means can connect this data to other data in a way that reveals intentionally concealed information, including personal data. This was beyond the scope of my research. Again, this dissertation is about the value of tokens in the game, not about the values of its players, which would require another dissertation to study. Overall, my research focused on tokens, not human subjects, and I had no inten- tion of identifying real persons behind Discord nicknames. If that happened by circumstance, the data was pseudonymized once again. For instance, some of the ’crypto famous’ players were additionally pseudonymized in Article V, even though this went beyond reasonable protection, as the same persons would routinely make rather daring public statements about their involvement with NFT trade in general and CryptoKitties in particular, in the press, on blockchain-related podcasts, and on their public accounts on the social platform formerly known as Twitter. Concerning data management, legal aspects, and cross-cultural awareness, this re- search adheres to the Ethical Guidelines of the Association of Internet Researchers (franzke, Bechmann, Zimmer, & Ess, 2020). The version 3.0 of these guidelines, issued in 2020, coincides with the broad adoption of cryptocurrency and block- chain technologies, to the extent their factual technological features permitted. All research data, apart from the researcher’s journal, was stored and processed on the premises of the University of Vaasa in the reasonably protected cloud service, own- Cloud, and was deleted upon completion of research. The researcher’s journal exists as a paper copy in the personal archive of the researcher in Belarus, which is inac- cessible to the researcher themselves due to them being a displaced person from a totalitarian state.18 Analysis of quantitative data was performed in WordStat by Provalis Research, R, and Microsoft Excel, as it is laid out in sections below. 18There is a non-zero probability that this journal may be confiscated by the Belarusian KGB, in which case I wholeheartedly wish them luck in making sense of it, and encourage them to steal all my CryptoKitties, if they can. 52 Acta Wasaensia 4.2 Research methods This dissertation in its entirety is a mixed-methods single case study of the typical blockchain-based game, CryptoKitties. A typical, or representative, case is ”a typ- ical ’project’ among many different projects” (Yin, 2009, p. 48) of the same kind. It provides insights into features, processes, and structures characteristic of similar social phenomena, institutions, or events. CryptoKitties is chosen as the representa- tive case due to its extensive history, wide audience, and its adherence to all typical features of a crypto game as described in section 2.5. As of this dissertation’s completion, the analytical service KittyHelper reported 138,757 player accounts registered on the blockchain throughout the game’s lifecycle, as of November 3, 2023. The only other game approaching this number at the time of completing this dissertation was the pay-to-earn game, Axie Infinity. The choice of a case study was conditioned by the research goal to study ”examin- ing contemporary events, but when the relevant behaviors cannot be manipulated” (Yin, 2009, p. 11). Crypto games were a new phenomenon in 2017-2022; at that time, normative blockchain research projected a bright future for them due to the as- sumed affordances of blockchain to create value. It appeared, however, that crypto games relied on the already existing designs and principles of multiplayer online games. Besides, the processes of value creation took a different turn from what was expected by blockchain enthusiasts. This study seeks to identify more general principles of value construction based on quantitative metrics and qualitative obser- vations of a hybrid sociotechnical phenomenon. In other words, as Clyde Mitchell puts it, to reveal ”features that may be construed as a manifestation of some general abstract theoretical principle,” (Mitchell, 1983, p. 192) such as a multi-dimensional model of value construction for NFTs in games. My case is dynamically situated on the continuum between exploratory and ex- planatory goals of a researcher. It begins with the exploration of a new digital environment, specifically a crypto game, and concludes with a broader interpreta- tion of the value generated in this environment. This transition from exploration to explanation parallels the shift from more specific linguistic descriptive methods typically used in communication studies (especially mixed methods linguistic anal- ysis in Article III) to the more general viewpoint of economic anthropology. This wider perspective allows me to contextualize the value of an NFT within societal value while addressing unique qualities of blockchain assemblages. The strategy of a case study has proven to be the most suitable for the main question of this dissertation, which is a ‘how’ question: how is value constructed in Cryp- toKitties? Case studies allow for reasonable depth and breadth to answer this type of question (Ghauri, 2004, p. 111), so a meaningful theoretical development can be offered as a result. Besides, this method is most appropriate for situations when, as was the case of value in crypto games, “the area of research is relatively less known, 53Acta Wasaensia and the researcher is engaged in theory-building types of research” (Ghauri, 2004, p. 109). The third research question of this dissertation - (RQ3). How can the value of NFTs in CryptoKitties be interpreted through other forms of value in society? - invites theory building in the novel area of non-fungible tokens. The resulting theoretical understanding is offered in Chapter 5. Engagement with all aspects of a phenomenon constitutes a holistic case study, which examines ”the global nature” (Yin, 2009, p. 50) of a project. One may ques- tion whether a value-based approach overlooks other aspects of CryptoKitties as a holistic object. As laid out in section 2.6, everything in CryptoKitties is about value on a competitive blockchain-based marketplace. Interactivity of the game it- self is limited with gamble-like breeding and speculation, both of which involve real-world money. I had to engage with the game on deeper levels (such as phe- nomenological and ethnographic) to discover other forms of value that amounted to something more meaningful than a cat-themed slot machine where one could also speculate with chips. The results of this engagement are presented in Articles IV, V, and VI. In this way, this dissertation in its entirety adheres to the contemporary holistic model of research in social sciences (Niglas, 2010). Typically for a case study, this research relies on mixed methods, which are used ”to capture the complete, holistic picture of the subject matter” (Hurmerinta & Num- mela, 2004, 164). Similar to the choice of a single case study mentioned above, this choice of methods has been conditioned by the novel topic of research, crypto games. ”Topic-related purposes reflect the researcher’s need to become acquainted with a phenomenon that is either very new or as yet rather unexplored” (Hurmerinta & Nummela, 2004, 166). For the entire course of research, qualitative and quantita- tive methods have been used in parallel, although priority was given to the qualita- tive methods. Moreover, different methods had to be applied to highlight different types of value, from financial profit to social capital, as described and interpreted in the entirety of this dissertation. In terms of data integration, medium level integra- tion was performed: qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed separately, and the findings were integrated at the final stage of analysis to formulate answers to research questions. However, strategies of data integration slightly differ at the level of individual ar- ticles, while remaining within the mixed methods paradigm. For the purposes of Articles IV and V, which discuss value creation initiated by the player community, qualitative and quantitative data were collected separately and combined at the stage of analysis. Conversely, Article III represents a deeper integration of mixed meth- ods in the case of linguistic data (Serada, 2023a), as it relies on the same set of data collected at once and then analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. 54 Acta Wasaensia 4.2.1 Digital ethnography (netnography) This research draws its interpretative understanding approach from the multidisci- plinary field of game studies. Game researchers provide a sociological perspective on virtual economies, using methods borrowed from real-world ethnographic re- search. Ethnography offers detailed descriptions of cultural phenomena, enabling researchers to examine how meaning is made within specific communities at a deep qualitative level. Further analysis involves ”sorting out the structures of significa- tion (...) and determining their social ground and import” (Geertz, 1973, p. 5), which can be performed in virtual communities, as well. Game researchers are well versed in ’virtual ethnography’ methods (see section 3.4). In particular, my research draws inspiration and knowledge from Tom Boellstorff’s work on Second Life. Boellstorff prefers the term ”virtual anthropology” to ”virtual ethnography” for linguistic reasons. His ”virtual anthropology” emphasizes study- ing virtual worlds ”on their own terms” (Boellstorff, 2015). This approach includes withholding immediate ethical judgment when encountering overt consumerism, such as in Second Life, or speculation with virtual assets, as in CryptoKitties. So far, only a limited number of ethnographic studies on blockchain communities exist, from both the normative (Andersen & Bogusz, 2019; Faustino, 2019; Kow & Lustig, 2018; Lagendijk et al., 2019) and descriptive perspectives (Lagendijk et al., 2019; S. Lee et al., 2022). At least one critical study focuses on crypto games, namely play-to-earn (De Jesus et al., 2022). It is safe to say that no other signifi- cant examples of crypto game netnography were published during the research and writing of this dissertation, and the use of netnography is just beginning to emerge in studies on game-related NFTs. Among the various ethnographic methods, netnography takes place primarily on the internet (hence the name) (e.g. Ducheneaut, Yee, & Bellotti, 2010). Broadly speak- ing, netnography is a set of research practices borrowed from ethnography and an- thropology and applied to online communities. In its most traditional form, netnog- raphy refers to participant-observational research that involves “online hanging-out, download, reflection and connection” (Kozinets, 2015, p. 67), thoroughly doc- umented in researcher’s notes or a diary, together with archived digital traces of online activities such as textual and quantitative data. Netnographers can observe the community’s life synchronously or diachronously, that is, by passive observation. In some cases, researchers only observe ’digital traces’ of online events, such as user activity on message boards, without the need to disclose themselves to those they are observing. This approach gives netnogra- phy “voyeuristic quality” (Kozinets, 2015, p. 88) that can be ethically borderline, especially when community members are involved in activities they may not wish to disclose publicly. 55Acta Wasaensia My research has been driven by the immersive approach from the latest develop- ment of netnography provided by its pioneer, Robert Kozinets Kozinets (2022). Immersion is crucial for two purposes of my research: to fully understand an online community (Kozinets, 2022), and to truly appreciate and understand a video game (G ¨unzel, 2012; Keogh, 2018; McMahan, 2003). According to this approach, the researcher engages with the environment as a community member would, through active and transparent ”participant observation, the centerpiece of any truly ethno- graphic approach” (Boellstorff, 2015, p. 69). Today, many researchers utilize less invasive asynchronous forms of netnography, generally without ethical concerns or legal repercussions. In my case, I disclosed my observer status and even befriended several players after data collection was complete, as is common in traditional ethnographic research. I could relate to their experiences on a personal level as well. Many members of the community experi- enced grief and distress watching their NFTs lose value in the many market crashes (see also S. Lee et al., 2022; Tjahyana, 2022), although most of them come from a crypto trading background that morally prepared them for uncertainty and loss. To sum it up, I obtained my qualitative data by playing an online game against other participants, trading with them, and engaging in player discussions on Discord, the primary communication platform for blockchain gamers. This approach helped me to ”directly observe the totality of a group’s activity” (Ducheneaut et al., 2010, p. 138) in a virtual environment where public and private boundaries are constantly negotiated, as proven by darknet studies (Bancroft & Reid, 2017; Han et al., 2020; Kethineni, Cao, & Dodge, 2018). During the first year of gameplay, I maintained reflexive field notes (Kozinets, 2015, p. 188), to which I later returned for additional data. I aimed to provide detailed ’thick descriptions’ of my experiences. These notes also traced my personal journey and development as a crypto gamer. As outlined in section 2.6, CryptoKitties is a pay-to-play game. It required me to spend some cryptocurrency from my own pocket for every in-game action. As ex- pected, no research funding was allocated for gambling it away in an online game, thus my gaming sessions were sparingly spread out. As mentioned in Article II, my journey began with losing significant amounts of money due to my own mistakes, but I eventually learned to break even. Reflective field notes were instrumental in gaining a deeper understanding of the game and returning my investments, as they allowed me to retrospectively learn from my mistakes in a conscious manner. De- spite this, I never profited from the game and never cashed o ut. Any profits were reinvested back into the game to facilitate a sufficient period of research observa- tions. The 200 or 300 euros that I initially spent and eventually earned back are likely my most unique contribution to the field of crypto game studies. My research also involved non-participant observation of interactions between play- ers in the game and in chat. This approach was socially acceptable within the com- munity, adhering to the ’do your own research’ principle (see page 44), and did not 56 Acta Wasaensia pose any financial burden on me. The narratives derived from these observations form the foundation for Articles I, II, and V. These articles establish meaningful narratives about value co-creation and co-destruction. On the other hand, Articles III, IV, and V are more data-driven than narrative-driven. At first, netnography pro- vided insights into the general functioning of the blockchain-based marketplace. As the analysis advanced, netnographic observations assisted in interpreting both quantitative and qualitative data collected through other methods. 4.2.2 Basic quantitative analysis of game market data The second most important method used in my research is the basic quantitative analysis of game market data. This approach was inspired by the work practices of game and app marketing specialists, with which I was familiar because I had held a number of such jobs in the real world. By ’basic analysis’, I refer to routine tasks like evaluating supply, average and bottom prices, and sales profits. I could perform these measurements in the CryptoKitties NFT market using analytical tools such as KittyHelper, KittyExplorer, and basic R packages. The latter also helped to segment this market to identify trading patterns for specific NFT categories, like ’fancies’ and ’Gen 0’ (Articles III, IV, V). My research ambitions did not include large scale quantitative analysis of Cryp- toKitties data. Such research has been already done in Ante (2022); Jiang and Liu (2021); Nadini et al. (2021); Pinna et al. (2019); B. White et al. (2022). A similar approach to Axie Infinity is presented in (Lai et al., 2023). These authors effec- tively describe the macroeconomic state of the market, including crypto games and NFTs in general. However, they do not delve into the interpretation of data re- lated to gameplay and meaning, which is the primary focus of my research. While the data I analyzed was not particularly ‘big’, it was statistically unpredictable and technically ’dirty’, requiring qualitative research for interpretation. As explained in section 2.1, blockchain offers a transparent and tamper-proof record of all transactions - at least, in the ideal world where no one has ever contemplated cheating. Lehdonvirta and Castronova had marveled about such digital ledgers long before blockchain made them a reality: “If we drew a map of someone’s goods- related transactions over a long period of time, we would probably find that this map not only corresponds with that person’s social network but also makes it possible to discern the nature of each link or relationship in the network” (Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014, p.49). Indeed, thanks to the transparency of blockchain, a curious researcher can examine every in-game transaction in a crypto game - unless players intentionally hide their digital traces to obscure the nature of their relationships in the network. In practice, ’serious business’ moves offchain for cost efficiency and privacy, as demonstrated in Articles II, III, and V of this dissertation. 57Acta Wasaensia Moreover, transaction data can be manipulated for PR and marketing purposes. For instance, game publishers may create fake player accounts and engage in wash trad- ing between them, even on the blockchain (see Pennec et al., 2021; Skirmantas, 2020)19 . Scholten et al. also suspect manipulation, assuming the presence of bots in blockchain gambling, implemented ”to artificially inflate the perceived popularity of the applications they are transacting with” (Scholten et al., 2020). I have no data on potential fraud of the same kind in CryptoKitties, so I assume that its popularity was organic due to its pioneering status and traditional PR in the media. I double checked possible cases of ’playing the system’ by gathering open data on transactions involving particular subsets of game tokens. This data was manually checked for wash trading and off-chain trading, and I compared prices of various categories of collectibles within the chosen period (see Articles IV, V). The majority of the analysis was done in Microsoft Excel, while R Studio was occasionally used for data plotting and segmentation. Manual review of these datasets revealed trends such as the shift of trade to OpenSea for side-chain transactions (see Article II). Generally, the ’digital destiny’ of these tokens was traced through a combination of qualitative and quantitative sources, integrating data obtained from blockchain an- alytics, digital traces of tokens, and participant observation. This approach allowed me to evaluate the relative scarcity and price of ’fancy’ tokens (Article IV), and illustrate the community-driven value of ’vintage fancies’ (Article V). 4.2.3 Phenomenological analysis of the gameplay The third, somewhat speculative yet crucial approach to this research is the phe- nomenological analysis of gameplay, or ’playing games as a method,’ as referred to in Alha’s dissertation on a related topic (Alha, 2020, p. 64). In the limited aca- demic literature on crypto games, only a small number of researchers have actually played the games they studied. This is not only due to the required substantial time and monetary investments but also possible conflicts o f i nterest, a s d iscussed in section 4.3. In phenomenological research, a game is experienced through a unique instance of gameplay. This experience is perceived and documented in real time and presented from a subjective first-person account, aiming to understand and interpret the result- ing experience. This approach addresses ”the perspective of the game-as-played” (Vella, 2015), which is often distinct from the game-as-designed or the game-as- advertised, which is a viewpoint commonly held by blockchain enthusiasts about crypto games. 19David Gerard refers to wash trading as ’painting the tape’ and describes several notorious cases in the early history of Bitcoin (Gerard, 2017, p.82). 58 Acta Wasaensia I used a phenomenological analysis of the gameplay as a supporting method in all articles, especially in Articles I, II, and IV. More specifically, my game experiences were logged in the form of player observations in the researcher’s journal as well as additional notes. While a formal analysis of the game structure might only reveal an inventory of immutable objects, the process of experiencing the game, even one with a simple design like CryptoKitties, is complex, specific, and nuanced. For example, the act of playing a crypto game invokes a deeper level of its digital materiality (Serada, 2020a), such as when a player encounters the endless technical limitations of the Ethereum platform (see Article II). Daniel Vella describes the phenomenological mode as follows: ”The player begins to interpret and organize information as she engages with the game. Discrete enti- ties, exhibiting certain behaviors and relating through a mechanics network, emerge as distinct figures” (Vella, 2015). These figures begin to make sense, not necessarily in relation to phenomena in the external world (i.e., how ’kitties’ signify cuteness (see Albarr´ an-Torres, 2016)), but through the player’s history with them and their relations in the virtual world, which is meant for exploration and enjoyment. In the case of CryptoKitties, the player may engage with the game rules and breeding probabilities, only to realize that the game is essentially ’pay-to-win’, as demon- strated in my short paper (Serada, 2020c). Understanding the game rules indirectly from paratexts and other players can be helpful, but the actual gameplay experience is crucial for understanding value in a game. It also helps prevent researchers from making inaccurate or absurd statements about blockchain and NFTs. While my experience could have been richer if I had around 100 euros to spend daily (typical for crypto casinos, as stated by Scholten et al. (2020)), it still helped me understand the true meanings of democratization, decentralization, and disintermediation of blockchains from the less than privileged position, as primarily described in Article II and other articles. Moreover, Article III shows that economic privilege is only further amplified in decentralized gaming, at least in my case. The infinite diversity of games and potential player experiences make it challenging to establish a generalized systematic framework for analyzing game rules. How- ever, game studies can provide some groundwork for studying games as rule-based systems that generate new meanings when players, usually humans, activate these structures and interact with them. There are frameworks that focus on specific game design features, such as the general formal framework of game analysis (Lankoski & Bj¨ ork, 2015) or the MDA framework of game design analysis (Hunicke, LeBlanc, & Zubek, 2004). As explained in section 2.6, from a game design perspective, CryptoKitties is essen- tially a collective inventory of 2 million tokens, with very limited interactivity (also see section 2.6). Even the publishers of the game have acknowledged this (Cryp- toKitties Team, 2018f, 2018g). A specific formal method was applied in Article 59Acta Wasaensia IV of this dissertation, namely the framework for the analysis of game inventories (collections of game objects available to players) by Nathan Dutton and Mia Con- salvo (Dutton & Consalvo, 2006). Although it is not universally applicable, it offers useful sets of questions and directions for inquiry to understand game inventories, and the value of objects within them. This approach, however, does not activate all possible meanings that are only available by actively interacting with the game. 4.2.4 Quantitative and qualitative linguistic analysis The impact of social media signals on value creation and manipulation in cryp- tocurrencies is widely recognized (Garcia & Schweitzer, 2015; Garcia et al., 2014; Karalevicius et al., 2018; Park & Park, 2021; Tandon, Revankar, Palivela, & Parihar, 2021). I provide a thematic literature review on this subject as of 2022, including potential implications for NFTs, in a separate book chapter related to this disserta- tion (Serada, 2023d). Since then, new studies on NFT marketplaces have emerged, some of which use qualitative linguistic data collected from Discord (Lu et al., 2023; Zaucha & Agur, 2022, 2023). My own study, which analyzed similar data from a different Discord server dedi- cated to CryptoKitties, forms Article III of this dissertation (Serada, 2023a). The data was collected all at once using a Discord chat scraper in late 2019, then an- alyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively with version 9.0.10 of the analytical tool WordStat, created by Provalis Research for academic and commercial market- ing research purposes. The aim of this analysis was to create a multi-dimensional model of CryptoKitties’ value, based on descriptions provided by traders. This ap- proach mirrors the computer-coded content analysis of social values in the study by (Bengston & Xu, 1995) Bengston and Xu, which is a model example of methods provided by Provalis Research software. This combination of qualitative and quantitative methods adheres to the method- ological approach detailed in the guide by Provalis Research’s academic represen- tatives (Pe´ladeau, 2021). It employs a mixed methods strategy, prioritizing quantita- tive data. Qualitative linguistic analysis allowed for the identification of economic, social, and playful value aspects, enabling the construction of a value system within this specific community. Moreover, quantitative analysis offered insights into the distribution, interconnect- edness, and evolution of different value dimensions based on their linguistic indica- tors. This process was studied and dynamically plotted on a timeline covering the first 720 days, or 105 weeks, of active CryptoKitties trading and promotion on the game’s official Discord server’s #selling channel. By the end of this period, too few traders remained in the channel to yield any significant results through quantitative methods. 60 Acta Wasaensia Crucially, quantitative data revealed prevalent trading strategies, which facilitated the creation of a trader classification based on qualitative and quantitative differ- ences in Article III. The value system of each trader segment was quantitatively and qualitatively evaluated following the method used in the public values study by Bengston and Xu (1995). The coding scheme and derived vocabulary were made public on Researchgate (Serada, 2023f) to ensure result reproducibility (the coding scheme does not include any human subject data). 4.3 Ethical considerations The business ethics of cryptocurrencies and other blockchain-based solutions is a contentious topic due to related ethically questionable and criminal activities, such as money laundering (Dierksmeier & Seele, 2016; Stokes, 2012, 2013; Strehle & Ante, 2020) and drug trade (Bancroft & Reid, 2017; Barratt et al., 2016; Foley et al., 2019; Han et al., 2020; Kethineni et al., 2018). Consequently, this dissertation follows the ethical framework outlined in the Menlo Report (Dittrich & Kenneally, 2012). This report, issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, addresses the malicious use of technologies and financial crime, specifically in the realm of ”interactive studies of malicious software and platforms” (Dittrich & Kenneally, 2012, p. 4). It also warns about malicious actors potentially misusing research results for harmful purposes. The Menlo Report highlights the potential for direct and indirect harm to human beings through their interaction with Information and Communication Technology (ICT). A key ethical principle, which is also integral to my research, involves pro- tecting human subjects within digital environments (metaverses) without casting judgment on their motives or actions. As the Menlo Report clearly states, ”it is not the role of researchers to judge guilt or innocence” (Dittrich & Kenneally, 2012, p. 9). Although this analysis is ethically justified to demonstrate and possibly prevent cheating in future games, it does not pass judgment on the individuals involved. The data used is strictly derived from a specific competition in 2020, which has since ended. No additional personal details about the players are revealed, and many have since deleted their Discord accounts or emptied their gaming wallets. Still, for illustrative purposes, in my Article IV, I show how the comparison of two open data sets can expose players who likely use multiple accounts to gain an advantage in the game. It is important to note that actions such as playful deception and violence within a game context may not necessarily have harmful real-world implications (C. T. Nguyen & Zagal, 2016), as referred to in section 3.4. 61Acta Wasaensia One challenge that blockchain technologies somewhat simplify is the protection of human subjects’ privacy. Originally, Bitcoin and blockchain technologies aimed to safeguard the anonymity of their users, even though it is technically ’quasi- anonymity’ or pseudonymity (Allon, 2018; Bancroft & Reid, 2017; Kethineni et al., 2018). Typically, the identities of crypto asset traders remain concealed unless they deliberately publicize themselves as ’crypto personalities’ in the electronic media discourse (Serada, 2024). More specific methods to protect research subjects’ pri- vacy are detailed in section 4.1. On the downside, open data on Ethereum does not offer any sociological insight into the player community as it lacks demographic information like age, gender, or income, as observed by Scholten et al. (2020) in their own research based on the same data type. Furthermore, despite being often cited as benefits by blockchain enthusiasts, disin- termediation and decentralization can have negative repercussions (see section 2.1 and section 3.2). The Menlo Report also discusses the decentralization and dis- intermediation of electronic networks and digital platforms. The report suggests that such changes could indirectly expose human subjects to new and unpredictable vulnerabilities (refer to section 3.4 for disintermediation in virtual economies). Same as with darknet research, the process and outcomes of blockchain technology research may pose additional risks or negative impacts on current or prospective users, including the researchers themselves. Such concerns become especially rel- evant in the context of blockchain studies (DuPont, 2020). In the words of Quinn DuPont, even for security research, ”Hacking a smart contract is functionally iden- tical to accessing the cryptocurrency assets” (DuPont, 2020). Or, in simpler terms from the same author, ”Breaking a smart contract is like breaking into the bank” (Cryptoeconomic Systems, 2020). In my case, I reduced such risks by publish- ing my research when its results could no longer be used to gain an advantage in CryptoKitties. DuPont offers a thorough exploration of risks in this field, supplemented by an ad- ditional ethical framework for blockchain researchers (DuPont, 2020). Purchasing Bitcoin or Ethereum (as in my case) for research purposes inherently creates a con- flict of interest for researchers. Those holding fungible or non-fungible tokens stand to gain from a price increase. DuPont’s survey affirms this issue; he found that 47% of researchers owned tokens, and 38% of those token holders profited from them (DuPont, 2020). Personally, I still own minuscule amounts of Ether and over 100 various NFTs, but I have never profited f rom i t, a nd I w as h ardly b reaking even when I was active in the game. Moreover, many scholars in blockchain studies are known to accept cryptocurren- cies and other tokens from their patrons and even research subjects. For instance, according to DuPont’s research, while 44% of researchers had affiliations with the industry, only 8% disclosed these relationships. DuPont suggests these close ties are typical in innovation studies, and the same views are expressed in the much ear- 62 Acta Wasaensia lier study of innovation by Latour (1987), for example. However, other researchers express concerns about the naive recklessness and techno-solutionism of techno- logical innovators (Beckert, 2013; Hecht, 2002; Howson & de Vries, 2022; Natale & Ballatore, 2020), and ”blockchain governmentality” specifically (Bernards et al., 2020; H¨ utten & Thiemann, 2018; Jutel, 2021; Serada, 2022a). These tendencies have been prevalent in my personal experience with blockchain innovators, as well. Ethnographers inevitably influence their research subjects simply through their hu- man presence and communication (Geertz, 2008). In internet and finance studies, participation can leave digital traces that may impact the entire market, such as the creation of new trading bots and market reactions to them. This is because ”re- searchers are inextricably part of the social reality being researched, i.e. they are not ’detached’ from the subject they are studying” (Grix, 2004, p. 83). To an ethnographer, however, it is impossible to fully understand the game without having participated in it (as Clifford Geertz (2008) famously did in Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight). As such, recognizing the researcher’s position in relation to their study subject is crucial for validating their research. To achieve that, I included my subjective phenomenological experience of playing CryptoKitties in the research, and interpret quantitative data through this lens. Speaking of my personal influence on the subject, I confess to introducing a sig- nificant publishing bias in favor of CryptoKitties in the general research literature (Yang & Wang, 2023). This is despite the fact that its developers did not support any academic research about this game. Interestingly, this bias was born from the six articles included in this dissertation, two additional publications required by my PhD program, and several articles from other researchers who pursued similar in- quiries and cited my work for this dissertation. From an ethical standpoint, I view it as beneficial that at least one crypto game has been extensively examined by a diverse group of scholars from various disciplines, almost all of whom chose to describe the current state based on empirical studies, rather than embracing specu- lative, future-oriented normative blockchain studies. In the meantime, research data has consistently shown a correlation, and to some extent, causal relationships between the price of crypto assets and the volume and sentiment of publications about them (Corbet, Larkin, Lucey, Meegan, & Yarovaya, 2020; Gandal et al., 2018; Garcia & Schweitzer, 2015; Garcia et al., 2014; Grobys, 2021; Horky, Dubbick, Rhein, & Fidrmuc, 2023; Y. B. Kim et al., 2017; Park & Park, 2021; Serada, 2023d). Under these circumstances, researchers are likely to promote their preferred cryptocurrency or token to increase its value. Some of them, from the bitcoin enthusiast camp, do this with the enthusiasm of professional sales- people and preachers. For instance, consider the particularly enthusiastic academic paper titled Bitcoin Is King, which states: ”Our slogan: not Bitcoin only, but Bitcoin first (Bailey & Warmke, 2023). 63Acta Wasaensia It is crucial to acknowledge the role of affect in the consolidation of blockchain as- semblages (as I do in Serada, 2023d), provided it does not lead to economic harm. With that in mind, I myself have tried to contribute positively to the blockchain dis- cussion, rather than simply criticizing it, kindly guided by DuPont and Kavanagh. My speculative model of a crypto personality suggests that for an unbiased public evaluation of, for instance, Bitcoin, crypto influencers should critique it as passion- ately as they endorse it (Serada, 2024). Speaking of my research on CryptoKitties, I could observe some players getting genuinely passionate about some of their ’kit- ties’, which is mentioned in Article V. Still, there was no tool to measure genuine passion in my research toolbox, at least at that time. This dissertation is my effort to understand the perspectives of NFT enthusiasts, even if I do not necessarily agree with some of their beliefs, such as their confi- dence in the technology that continues to fail them. As a social science researcher operating within the interpretive research paradigm, it is important for me to ac- knowledge my personal attitude towards NFTs in games, even if it doesn’t directly impact my research. During my participatory observation of the game, I observed that some players genuinely enjoy the experience, and I am genuinely happy for them. I respect the community members, even though our perceptions of fairness in video games are not the same. However, our ethical viewpoints in the real world may align more than they differ. 64 Acta Wasaensia 5 RESULTS: A HOLISTIC MODEL OF VALUE IN CRYPTOKITTIES This dissertation aims to understand the principles behind the valuation of Cryp- toKitties NFTs and present them in a holistic way. To address the speculative nature of blockchain optimism and the limitations of strictly quantitative ’big data’ studies, I answer this question using a mix of qualitative and quantitative data from actual, observable play practices (Chapter 4). A mixed-methods typical case study is nec- essary to answer the ’how’ question: How is value constructed in CryptoKitties? Is the process more complex than predicted and measured based solely on the tech- nological capabilities of blockchains? While the answer to the latter question may seem straightforward, it still requires clarification on how exactly these dynamics of value construction differ from the initially proposed model for virtual economies based on artificial scarcity. The objective of a holistic research strategy is to create a model that encompasses multiple aspects of the subject under study - in this case, the value of NFTs in a typical crypto game. In this dissertation, such a model serves as a visualization of significant relationships within different aspects of value sourced from the previ- ous literature (see Grix, 2004, p. 20). Moreover, it puts these aspects in a three- dimensional space within individual, social, and economic dimensions of value cre- ation in games and virtual worlds in particular . In academic research, I strive for a practical ’middle-range theory’ (Grix, 2004, p. 111). This theory is specific enough to be applied to empirical work on, and the design of, blockchain-based virtual economies. Yet, it is broad enough to encompass various game economies, not necessarily on blockchain. Among the dissertation articles, Article III provides the most important insights for the final theory building. The linguistic data collection and analysis for this article occurred from late 2019 to early 2023. This analysis happened in parallel with work on all other articles, as it progressed very slowly in the early stages. The following summary elaborates on this article and situates it within recent literature and theo- retical foundations (see Chapter 3). However, without the insights gained through the researcher’s observations, quantitative measurements, and ’digital traces’ as de- tailed in Articles I, II, IV, and V, this model would not be possible. Article VI serves as a summary of earlier insights that also informed the final stage of writing Article III. As highlighted in section 3.4, current frameworks for asset value in multiplayer games broadly describe various functional, social, and hedonic qualities of assets in games. I revisit these insights in section 5.2. Besides, section 4.2.3 has already mentioned the perspective of ’games-as-played’, which also makes a comeback in section 5.2. 65Acta Wasaensia 5.1 Research process and summaries of the arti- cles This section summarizes the articles included in this dissertation. A brief summary of the entire dissertation can be found in section 1.3. The purpose of my research has been to determine how value is constructed in CryptoKitties, and the research questions of the dissertation are as follows. RQ1: What constitutes the value of a CryptoKitties NFT? RQ2: How is the fair price of this NFT established on a peer-to-peer marketplace? RQ3: How can the value of NFTs in CryptoKitties be interpreted through other forms of value in society? The articles in this dissertation mark the gradual progress in understanding the fac- tors that determine the value of NFTs in a blockchain-based game. The research process involved alternating between exploratory hypothesis-building and glean- ing insights from the data. The articles cover a range of approaches to the main question of NFT value. These questions shift from the exploration of the novel en- vironment of blockchain gaming to the focused investigation of value construction on the blockchain. The insights add to our existing knowledge of online games and virtual worlds (Chapter 3), along with blockchain technology (Chapters 1 and 2). Potential further developments in theory-building are discussed in Chapter 6. The rest of this chapter focuses on the structure of value and its transformations during collective gameplay. I. CryptoKitties and the New Ludic Economy: How Blockchain Intro- duces Value, Ownership, and Scarcity in Digital Gaming • How can blockchains be used in game design and play? • What is the role of scarcity and ownership in the construction of value for CryptoKitties? • What are the specific characteristics of value created in this way? This article questions the role of blockchain technology in creating artificial scarcity, which is the basis for value in CryptoKitties. It first references the works of Lehdonvirta and Castronova to conceptualize value in crypto games. The data presented indicates a discrepancy between the promises of block- chain enthusiasts and the reality of early crypto games. Artificial scarcity and true ownership do not generate value in CryptoKitties, but instead lead to 66 Acta Wasaensia their valuelessness and digital abundance. Finally, the unique visual appear- ance of the kitties is identified as a source of their designed value after the initial promise of programmed scarcity is unfulfilled. II. Cryptomarkets Gamified: What Can We Learn by Playing CryptoKit- ties? • How are specific features of blockchain, such as decentralization, secure own- ership, uniqueness, scarcity, and peer-to-peer trading, implemented in the de- sign of CryptoKitties? • How do crypto games contribute to the gamification of finances? • Does the gamification of decentralized finances make blockchain technolo- gies more accessible in this case? Based on corporate paratext analysis and researcher observations, this con- ference paper further explores blockchain’s role in value construction within CryptoKitties. The paper summarizes five of the key features of blockchain tokens - decentralization, true ownership, uniqueness, scarcity, and peer-to- peer trading - based on early theoretical work by Iansiti and Lakhani (2017). These features are applied in the game design with varying degrees of suc- cess. For example, the concept of true ownership clashes with pseudonymity, resulting in an extended period of token verification on the blockchain. Ad- ditionally, the idea of artificial scarcity, which rapidly mutates into digital abundance, is quickly abandoned by the game publishers who go on creat- ing new scarcities, undermining the initial decentralization. The paper also acknowledges the issue of information asymmetry between novice and ex- perienced players, and introduces trading bots as a tool for value extraction. In conclusion, CryptoKitties can be seen as a successful attempt to gamify decentralized finances. The game’s developers sought to make cryptocurren- cies more accessible, resulting in a useful, albeit not entirely safe, tool for educating the general public about the ethics of cryptocurrency trade. III. Does #Selling Sell? Analyzing Content of CryptoKitties Traders’ Talk on Discord • What determines the value of a CryptoKitty NFT based on its linguistic de- scription? • What linguistic strategies do sellers use to determine the value of tokens? 67Acta Wasaensia • Who benefits from these strategies of value creation and assessment in a blockchain-based game? This conference paper challenges the notion that blockchain simplifies value co-creation in games. The focus is shifted from the qualities of tokens to the attitudes of players, in order to identify the actual site of value construction. Four types of CryptoKitties traders are identified in the data, distinguished by quantitative and qualitative differences in their discourse. Furthermore, three dimensions of value are derived from the analyzed linguistic data: value as designed, as played, and as advertised. The data shows a qualitative dif- ference between clusters of sellers who use different language expressions related to value, depending on their advertising frequency. The main selling strategy appears to be flooding the communication channel with spam-like messages. This tactic benefits the largest sellers but can hinder smaller sell- ers and buyers, which goes against the alleged benefits of decentralization as democratization. IV. Fancies Explained: Converting Symbolic Capital into NFTs • What is the nature of social capital in blockchain-based gaming? • Is it possible to exchange traditional ’gaming capital’ for other forms of value in the production of blockchain-based games? • Has the new version of artificial scarcity worked for the game, after the initial design was subverted by players? This article explores the social aspect of value creation in CryptoKitties, fo- cusing on symbolic capital. It specifically discusses how players and pub- lishers analyze, comprehend, and occasionally co-create the visual appear- ance, backstory, utility, and profitability of certain game tokens. Blockchain technologies, according to previous articles, have contributed minimally to value co-creation; this article investigates communal value creation processes in CryptoKitties beyond blockchain. Key questions include whether gaming skills and knowledge of games and game design are valued in the commu- nity, and if these forms of social capital can translate into economic profit. Drawing on detailed descriptions of two value co-creation cases, the article concludes that the game’s publisher, rather than skilled gamers and fan con- tent creators, primarily benefits from these processes. Moreover, the types of value that form social capital in a crypto game derive from the culture of cryptocurrency trading, rather than gaming culture. 68 Acta Wasaensia V. Vintage CryptoKitties and the Quest for Authenticity • How does value co-creation actually work in CryptoKitties? (What effect did the concept of ’vintage’ have on the supply and prices of the corresponding tokens?) • What are the most beneficial ways to trade, based on data from the block- chain? • What kind of value did the concept of ’vintage’ generate? Could it be social capital, as opposed to financial capital? This conference paper examines a specific process of value construction ini- tiated by the player community of CryptoKitties, which was recognized by game publishers, as seen through the lens of symbolic capital. This process purposely defies the logic of artificial scarcity, providing a creative and ne- gotiable method to assign value to otherwise valueless kitties. However, this playful value construction fails to generate significant surplus value in the game market, as demonstrated by quantitative measurements. The paper em- phasizes that speculation, which is the proven strategy to extract value in the game, occurs regardless of the value consciously created by the commu- nity. Moreover, the use of multiple accounts by a single player is explained, and this is verified through repeated gift transactions between accounts. Ul- timately, the party that benefits most from all forms of value creation and extraction are the game publishers, as also discussed in Article IV. VI. Fairness by Design: The Fair Game and the Fair Price on a Blockchain- Based Marketplace • As long as economic participation in CryptoKitties is consensual, is it possi- ble to call the game unfair? • Can blockchain technology make a virtual marketplace fair? • How is the difference between fairness and equity of opportunities exempli- fied in a blockchain-based game? This conference paper presents preliminary results from a researcher’s ob- servations in relation to fairness in crypto games. It explains the concept of ’second morality’ in blockchain games and posits that a ’fair price’ for a CryptoKitty cannot be statistically determined, as it might be in an ideally competitive market. In terms of theory, it brings together concepts of scarcity, speculation, ’second morality’, and fair play, based on the ethical blockchain framework of Lapointe and Fishbane. 69Acta Wasaensia 5.2 Three dimensions of value As discussed in section 3.4, research on game marketing provides a complex, multi- dimensional view of value creation in virtual economies, taking into account com- munal and social aspects (Hamari & Lehdonvirta, 2010; Lehdonvirta, 2008; Martin, 2008). Specifically, M artin c onsiders t he u se-value o f v irtual g oods a s symbolic value in the Baudrillardian sense, linking it to exchange value or in-game price in various ways. The symbolic value dimensions of virtual goods include factors such as ”profitability and affordability, social belonging, s tatus, conspicuous consump- tion, identity and selfhood, individuality, and social lubrication” (Martin, 2008). The plurality of these factors and unclear relations between them make building a model a challenging task. Generally, it has been confirmed i n p revious s tudies t hat s ocial s tatus i s a strong motivator for purchasing in-game assets, but perceived fairness also plays a role (Constantiou et al., 2012; Heeks, 2009). Additionally, Lehdonvirta (2009) offers a practice-oriented framework of purchasing motivations in virtual worlds, which remains relevant today. Nine attributes are identified f rom t he d ata a nd roughly grouped into three categories: functional, individual emotional (hedonic), and so- cial. The functional category is based on use-value, like performance and func- tionality; the hedonic category on perceived item qualities, such as visual appear- ance, sounds, background fiction, provenance, customizability, cultural references, and branding; the social category includes scarcity. However, the economic eval- uation of socially valuable attributes is challenging, making their value ephemeral (Lehdonvirta & Virtanen, 2010, p. 24). In their collective works, Lehdonvirta and Castronova identify three primary di- mensions of value: functional, hedonic, and social uses of goods (Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014, p. 54-55). Eventually, they combine hedonic and social value into ’vanity’, contrasting it with use or utility value. ’Vanity’ uses relate to the non-monetary achievement or ’ego’ motivation for fraud in virtual worlds, as de- scribed by Dilla et al. (2013). Castronova revisits this concept in his later project, suggesting that this motivation could be exploited for profit (Castronova, 2020). Castronova occasionally uses dystopian fiction as a research method, aligning with the perspective of blockchain optimists. In his recent publication, which discusses the inevitability of play-to-earn in the future (Castronova, 2020), he presents a dystopian vision of gamers confined t o 1 00 s quare f oot c ubicles. T hey compete against an inherited elite for money, earning just enough to meet basic human needs. Three types of in-game value are mentioned again, but now Castronova links all of them to vanity and the desire to dominate, to satisfy the player’s ’ego’, and espe- cially the ego of those who were born into rich families. Castronova portrays this as a natural and inevitable result from a utilitarian viewpoint. 70 Acta Wasaensia Shared authorship between Lehdonvirta and Castronova should not be viewed as an indication of similar conceptual or ideological positions. Notably, Lehdonvirta sees scarcity as a social factor, suggesting it transcends the bounds of artificial scarcity. Conversely, Castronova views scarcity solely in economic terms, relating to supply, demand, and exchange value. Furthermore, Lehdonvirta focuses on the practical aspect of creating virtual goods that players will want to purchase. On the other hand, Castronova consistently argues that value is entirely subjective. He asserts that searching for value beyond monetary worth is pointless, and economics should only be considered ”when people express their desires in markets” (Castronova, 2014, p. 103). This view is inapplicable to the NFT market, which is an assemblage of human and non-human traders (see section 2.3) driven by all kinds of external motivations and sentiments (section 2.5; see also Serada (2023d)). The structural similarities and differences in the approaches of Martin, Lehdonvirta, and Castronova can be understood from Table 4. Table 4. Comparison between different aspects of value creation and extraction in game assets according to Lehdonvirta, Castronova, and Martin. General categories in Lehdonvirta and Castronova (2014) Interpretation Martin’s examples (2008) Lehdonvirta’s examples (2009) Castronova’s evil project of value extraction in play-to-earn (2020) Functional value Utility value of assets in the game Profitability, affordability Performance Pay-to-win for the ‘upper class’ of gamers Functionality Paywalls in game challenges Hedonic value Perceived and subjective value of assets, such as aesthetic or senti- mental Visual appearance and sounds, background fiction, provenance, customisability, cultural references and branding Vanity items that enhance “the social prestige of the spender” with the purpose of “looking better than everyone else”, that is, non-spenders Social value Prestige items as signifiers of ‘social capital’ acknowledged by other gamers Social belonging and status, conspicuous consumption, identity and self- hood, social lubrication Scarcity (no distinction made for artificial scarcity) My theory of value in games originates from the research conducted for Article III in this dissertation. In that article, I developed and discussed three dimensions of value construction in NFTs, drawing on linguistic data from the #selling channel on the official CryptoKitties Discord server. To extend the model beyond the linguistic expressions of value, I have incorporated studies on the game’s visual design and the communal practices of value construction in Articles IV and V into the initial scheme. 71Acta Wasaensia 1. Value assigned to tokens by developers (such as visual traits); 2. Value discovered by players through their collective interaction with the game (such as particular qualities of ‘kitties’ that are beneficial for breeding, or those that make ‘kitties’ valuable to collectors in new ways); 3. Value assigned to tokens by traders to make ‘kitties’ more desirable to prospec- tive buyers (such as typical expressions used in advertising). The model I propose incorporates game design affordances, social practices, and economic incentives, which are classified as designed value, played value, and pro- jected value respectively (Figure 4). These three aspects serve as dimensions, rather than layers, to clarify the complex ambiguity of previous value models (Lehdon- virta, 2009; Martin, 2008). Individually, they represent three distinct facets of game experience: game-as-designed, game-as-played, and game-as-advertised. Each in- game asset’s value can be pinpointed at the intersection of these dimensions for practical needs such as game design, achieving the best gaming experience, or set- ting a fair price for a game item. Figure 4. Three dimensions of value of in-game assets. 1. Designed value: value built into the game system by its designers Designed value refers to the value intentionally written into the game system by its designers. For instance, in CryptoKitties, the primary method to do so is artifi- cial scarcity (Article I). Other elements of designed value include visual and sound design, as well as non-interactive game elements like cut scenes, particularly in single-player games. The use of visual design and storytelling to construct value in CryptoKitties is elaborated in Article V. CryptoKitties exemplifies the limitations of deliberate value construction in an on- line game played by thousands of human players, including some non-humans such 72 Acta Wasaensia as bots. As shown in this case, constructed value can easily fail because not all that is scarce is also valuable. To begin with, the artificial scarcity of tokens is rela- tive to the number of active players in the game (Article V), which means that all items’ value drops when the game is abandoned by the majority of its players. In the particular case of CryptoKitties, scarcity transforms into ’value as advertised’, or projected value, due to the actual digital abundance (the opposite of scarcity), as laid out in Article I. Article III further illustrates how scarcity and rarity have be- come purely rhetorical features of NFTs in the case of CryptoKitties, disconnected from both designed and played value. While artificial scarcity is important for understanding the game, the game-as- played prioritizes the played value of genuinely scarce tokens appreciated by the community. The difference between ’designed’ and ’natural’, or relational scarcity, is depicted in Figure 5. This Figure also maps examples of value from from Table 4 onto my model. For instance, conspicuous consumption combines designed and played value. 2. Played value: value derived from playing the game as a part of its community This refers to the value discovered and co-created by a player community through shared gameplay experiences or in the collective experience of playing the same single-player game. In the case of CryptoKitties, this type of value can be found in genuine (non-profit-oriented) communication between players, which is relatively rare but easily distinguishable from repetitive spamming behavior (see Article III). Articles IV and V outline several instances of value co-creation within the player community that were not motivated by financial gain. Value discovered at play can organically transform into other types of value, such as the projected sentimental value of the kitty named Jodi411, as described in Article V. The social aspect of value does not imply that players can generate new value by merely agreeing on its significance during communication. In Article V, the player community collectively chose to assign value to certain tokens, creating new social capital. However, this new value was only recognized by a relatively small group of players active on Discord. The concept of ’vintage’ did not generate significant ex- change value in the market, at least from a mid-term perspective. However, ’vintage kitties’ added a new aspect to designed value, when they were officially recognized by the game publisher and received a special badge in the game interface. 3. Projected value: value assigned by individual players or game publishers in personal appreciation and trade In addition to the game-as-designed and the game-as-played, there is also the game- as-advertised - typically a much better game than the existing one, especially in the cryptocurrency sphere. To impress potential players and investors, the game publisher projects value that may or may not actually exist in the game through 73Acta Wasaensia Figure 5. Projection of examples of value construction from previous frameworks on my model of value. 74 Acta Wasaensia their corporate paratexts and marketing materials. The same happens with game assets traded on a peer-to-peer marketplace. Projected value is mostly rhetorical, manifested in statements, not transactions, and minimally supported by the game’s design. It typically reflects the desire to sell rather than to buy. The projected value of a CryptoKitties’ token is represented by the selling price set by its seller. As stated in Articles III and V, sellers can set any price and attribute any qualities to NFTs, regardless of the designed and played value of the same tokens. Opaque value creation processes within the community, coupled with the promise of immutability on the blockchain, provide sellers with the hope that someone will purchase the item at this price in the future. The longer the item remains unsold, the greater the disparity between its projected value and its played value. Projected value does not necessarily have to be agreed upon within the player com- munity, especially when ‘the invisible hand of the market’ is so easily manipulated. The community may carve out space for price negotiation and, sometimes in col- laboration with the publisher, exert control or regulate when prices are excessively inflated (or deflated). For instance, in my research for Article III, I observed a number of disputes over overpriced tokens. However, these disputes were generally dismissed within the community and became exceptionally rare with the ongoing centralization of trade. This model answers the first research question of my dissertation: RQ1: What con- stitutes the value of a CryptoKitties NFT? Table 5 links general types of value construction and extraction from previous re- search to my dimensions of value. Examples of value construction are taken from (Martin, 2008), (Lehdonvirta, 2009), and (Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014). Table 5. Compatibility with the framework by Lehdonvirta and Castronova (2014). Dimensions of value Examples of value construction Compatibility with Lehdonvirta & Castronova (2014) Visual performance and sound, background fiction Hedonic value Designed value Functionality, customizability Functional value Performance (can also be a designed value) Functional value Played value Social belonging and status, identity and selfhood, social lubrication Social value Price, exchange value Social value Projected value Sentimental value Hedonic value 75Acta Wasaensia A novel aspect of my model is its consideration of not only how value is created, but also who creates and extracts it. The most important distinction is between value created by game developers (designed value) and value co-created by players through shared gaming experiences (played value). The criteria for deciding about each particular aspect of a game asset’s value are presented in Figure 6. This distinction is already apparent in studies of traditional games, especially in game genres like role-playing games (RPGs) that afford players greater agency and freedom to craft their own narratives and characters. For instance, Williams et al. perceive it as a distinction between structures and processes: ”rules and game me- chanics serve as crucial structures, while the enactment of roles and players’ coop- erative actions are significant processes” (Williams, Kirschner, Mizer, & Deterding, 2018, p. 227). Game creators design these structures, more or less intentionally (some of them do not reflect much on what they are doing), while game players per- form these actions, more or less freely (also according to their shared idea of ’fair play’ and cheating, see page 40). The distinction between structures and processes roughly correlates with my concepts of designed and played value. In my case, there is also the aspect of economic activity in the form of peer-to- peer trade. This relates to both structures, such as a marketplace on a blockchain platform, and processes, like economic transactions between players that consti- tute a virtual economy. Including a deeper discussion on economics would over- complicate my model, so I have chosen not to incorporate it. However, this ap- proach warrants exploration in future studies of role-playing games on blockchain, should these games persist. The easiest type of value to extract is the projected value, as shown in Figure 6. This is due to its close relationship with exchange value, which is its material manifes- tation in a marketplace. Both players and game publishers can freely construct pro- jected value, with or without blockchain-based solutions, even when it negatively affects the game experience and diminishes the played value. For example, Article III examines how the repetition of advertising messages inflates buyers’ interest and captures their attention. This is comparable to the general practice of NFT trading, where the value of NFTs depends on public sentiment, which adopters intentionally inflate (Serada, 2023d). A similar scenario occurred in early trade offer spamming in EverQuest, the first popular online game that enabled such behavior. The public chat window became almost useless due to the overload of messages, as many people were promoting their products in the same area (Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014, p. 123). Game publishers can also extract value from players, for example, by offering them expensive branded content that does not enhance gaming experience. This form of value is designed by game developers, but it is not necessarily recognized by the community of players, which means that it exists as projected value. (The art of 76 Acta Wasaensia Figure 6. Algorithm flowchart for distinguishing between types of value in game assets. 77Acta Wasaensia constructing value of branded content can be studied using examples like Fortnite, on which see Sch ¨ ober and Stadtmann (2020)). A notable example in CryptoKitties is the business partnership between its publishers and the British rock band Muse. Even though the CryptoKitties player base did not overlap with Muse’s fan base, the collaboration still generated enough projected value to encourage purchases and stimulate speculation (Muse, 2020). This branding added no played value, as these ’kitties’ were unbreedable. Player value typically finds itself on the positive side of value creation, as opposed to value extraction. When player value is created in a community, it can be converted to a form of social capital, more particularly as its gaming-specific type. Article IV in particular demonstrates that co-creation of social capital follows the most rigid, and at the same time, the least transparent rules as to who can and who cannot create value, based on the ideology, community ethics, and the internal structure of cultural production. In Article V, by creating the new type of value and labeling it ‘vintage’, players claimed cultural and other forms of social capital in the collective act of appreci- ating aesthetic value of tokens, but this aesthetic value was not immediately con- vertible into financial v alue. M ore g eneral t rends i n c irculation o f s ocial capital in CryptoKitties are described in Articles IV and V. In short, social and symbolic gaming capital in crypto games appears to be moving along the lines of financial capital, similarly to inherently consumerist Second Life described by Boellstorff, but differently from more social playful virtual worlds such as EverQuest, where economic capital is derived from social capital: “While a character might be quite powerful in terms of experience level, they also need social capital to draw on to progress to the true high-end game” (Jakobsson & Taylor, 2003, p. 86). Naturally occurring scarcity can contribute to the process of value construction at the societal level (Lehdonvirta, 2009). This process is illustrated in my research through ’kitties’ with ’lucky numbers’ and palindromes in their numeric IDs, as seen in the dataset for Article III (Serada, 2023f), and ’vintage kitties’ in Article V. According to my model, such inherent scarcity gains importance at the intersection of two value dimensions: the personal or projected value for an individual player and the community’s appreciation. As illustrated in Figure 5, several aspects of value construction in games, proposed by Martin, Lendonvirta, and Castronova, exist in two dimensions simultaneously. This is due to the processes of value construction encompassing all types of actors: game developers, the player community, and individual players. Consequently, the total value of a game token might be situated at the crossroads of its designed, played, or projected value. Furthermore, a blockchain-based marketplace includes both human and non-human actors, such as price bots. These bots are not social, and they do not have any shared 78 Acta Wasaensia culture or experiences. From this standpoint, bots only recognize and generate pro- jected value, especially in value extraction processes. This projected value can still influence the played value, as discussed in Article VI, using the example of a cat named Dragon (Serada, 2022b, pp. 65-66). If a buyer is convinced by the value projected by another player or a company, it materializes in an exchange value. However, proving the fairness of this exchange value is incredibly challenging due to the inherent informational asymmetry of a crypto bazaar. As laid out above in sections 2.1 and 2.3, blockchain has been envisioned by nor- mative blockchain studies as ”the foundational tool for peer-to-peer value creation” (Filippi de & Hassan, 2016) due to its technological affordances. In order to ad- equately represent and explain the processes of value creation, the ’peer-to-peer’ aspect needs to be re-centered in future research. The value of game assets is not static; it evolves during collective play, often transforming in numerous ways. Inter- estingly, players continue to find, co-create, and value non-economic aspects even in the slots-like money game of CryptoKitties, as explored in more depth in Articles IV and V. This leads me to argue for a cultural and anthropological understanding of value in crypto games, as opposed to the neoclassical virtual economies model based on supply and demand, and beyond the technocentric models proposed by speculative blockchain studies. 79Acta Wasaensia 6 CONCLUSIONS: TOWARDS THE ANTHROPO- LOGICAL VALUE OF NFTS This section introduces the discussion about the hybridity of technology and human (anthropological) factors in value creation, both in my specific case of CryptoKit- ties and in crypto games overall. As suggested in the Introduction and section 3.1, blockchain is a unique subject to study due to the diverse collection of enthusiasts, tricksters, and fraudsters that are an essential part of its assemblages. Lagendijk et al. (2019) characterizes blockchain as a hyperobject in this regard, although this could be another instance of what Latour (1987) described as ’blackboxing’ an in- novation to make it more desirable to investors. Nevertheless, there is some common ground to be found between Latour (2007) and Lagendijk et al. (2019) to shed more light on blockchain innovation as an as- semblage: the disruption of hierarchies and ethical standards on blockchain plat- forms calls for a posthuman, or more-than-human (Pyyhtinen, 2016), perspective on blockchain’s value (see section 2.3). In the particular case of crypto games, as my research demonstrates, this more-than-human approach have failed to include and empower human actors in order to make these games valuable to them. 6.1 Sociotechnical challenges and realities of play in CryptoKitties Given the facts (and fictions) presented in recent blockchain research (see sec- tion 3.2), it becomes crucial to reexamine and clarify the sociotechnical nature of blockchain (see section 2.1). This section revisits the sociotechnical attributes of blockchain as outlined in section 2.1, considering insights from the study of Cryp- toKitties. While blockchain platforms may shape certain features of crypto games, they do not define the entire gaming experience, which also encompasses memo- rable shared playtime and implicit community-developed rules. The study results, particularly evident in Articles III, IV and V, show that the fluid and improvised rules of blockchain games and game-specific community ethics of- ten challenge the immutability, verifiability, controllability and security of block- chain. For instance, speculation and deceptive practices such as spamming and overpricing are common in CryptoKitties. However, cheating was relatively rare, although I observed, and experienced myself, some forms of social manipulation. Below, I list all eight key affordances of blockchain from Figure 7, as proposed by Lapointe and Fishbane, and annotated in the context of my research. 80 Acta Wasaensia Figure 7. Key attributes of blockchain in CryptoKitties, challenged by human actors. • Immutability. The technical immutability of CryptoKitties has remained un- compromised to date. However, this does not guarantee that immutability will not fail in the future. On one hand, key attributes of kitties are represented by code strings embedded in the tokens themselves. This implies that even if the website goes down, the tokens will stay in their owners’ wallets. On the other hand, ’fancy’ and ’purrstige’ tokens have a unique customized appearance. This appearance is only represented in the image at the website’s server, not in the code, as detailed in Article IV. These tokens, which have been relatively more valuable (see Articles III, IV), will lose their value when the centralized database of images, owned by the publisher, goes down. • Transparency. The transparency offered by blockchain applications is seen as a way to ensure fairness in crypto games (Komiya & Nakajima, 2019). This transparency allows for quantitative measurements through various tools like Etherscan, KittyHelper, CKBox, and other custom interfaces, when ‘doing your own research’. However, its utility for the average player of CryptoKit- ties is debatable. Despite the transparency of the blockchain, the game’s rules can be difficult for newcomers to understand, which makes CryptoKitties un- fair to newcomers (Sako et al., 2021). The rules set in smart contracts require a good understanding of programming (Gupta et al., 2022) to fully utilize their transparency. These factors contribute to information asymmetry typical for bazaars (Deka, 2017; Geertz, 1978). However, based on my observations during my research, transparency could be a factor in the relatively uncom- mon instances of scamming and cheating in CryptoKitties (see section 2.6), although it might as well be due to transparency of player communication on Discord (Article III). • Disintermediation. Disintermediation in the sense proposed by Lapointe and Fishbane refers to the removal of intermediaries, such as game publishers, from interactions between players and the game system. This was somewhat 81Acta Wasaensia achieved in the early days of CryptoKitties on Ethereum but brought up ques- tions about potential benefits and costs. On one hand, later re-centralization and re-intermediation led to a loss of controllability and pseudonymity, as experienced by players who migrated from Ethereum to the corporate block- chain Flow (see Article II). On the other hand, a decentralized architecture requires high monetary costs of play, which can go beyond all imaginable limits, as explained in section 2.6. Players pay high transaction fees on the blockchain, bearing the game maintenance costs themselves instead of the publisher paying for game servers and backend architecture. Lower fees are possible on platforms like OpenSea, which acts as an intermediary, but the tradeoff is security (as seen in Article II). Finally, disintermediation is just as good, if not better, for the needs of value extraction, as observed in Article III. • Pseudonimity. This blockchain affordance is relatively well represented in CryptoKitties as compared to other domains such as cryptocurrency trading. There was no hard identification provided for starting an account, at least, on Ethereum, with exceptions such as Flow described in Article II. There- fore, technical pseudonymity remained uncompromised in the game during my research. All players in the game know each other by one (or several) nicknames that can be changed at any time. Interestingly, the game system of CryptoKitties does not require a fee for changing one’s nickname; only public addresses of Ethereum wallets remain immutable. Active players use several wallets, sometimes to obscure their digital traces, but more often for convenience. Real names are not mentioned, although the most active players are relatively easy to identify in real life, sometimes even accidentally, as it is explained in Article V. • Security. The security of CryptoKitties at the technological level is satisfac- tory compared to other crypto games (Min & Cai, 2019; Wang et al., 2020). I have not noticed any significant technical exploits in the game itself (aside from ’autobirthers’, see page 28). I also have not observed any player be- havior beyond socially accepted speculation and treacherous play. However, the situation changed after the NFT boom in 2021. Since 2022, listing Cryp- toKitties on OpenSea triggers a surge of phishing emails, imitating OpenSea messages, intending to steal tokens from players’ wallets. Despite most of the game’s smart contracts remaining unchanged since 2018, it appears that NFT fraud tools and methods evolved much faster in 2021-2022. • Verifiability. Technologically speaking, verifiability of records is confined to the blockchain itself and does not extend off-chain or to the physical world. Only transactions native to the blockchain can be verified (Gonzalez, 2019). In CryptoKitties in particular, verifiability can be compromised by one per- son using multiple accounts, as detailed in Article V, or multiple individuals controlling a single account, as suggested by Article IV. Nevertheless, I relied 82 Acta Wasaensia on verifiability of blockchain to some extent to gather data on transactions and prices of specific NFTs. The procedure is elaborated upon in Article V, which also discusses the limitations of this approach in relation to off-chain transactions, common in CryptoKitties. • Controllability. Crypto games offer the prospect of so-called true ownership due to their controllability (see page 42). As stated in Article I, the asser- tion of true ownership over in-game assets often uses game publishers as a ‘straw person’ to induce anxiety over the loss of a player’s virtual wealth (see also section 3.2). However, as argued in all articles, particularly Articles IV, V, and VI, immutability and transparency do not prevent the publisher from manipulating the economy in general nor from tweaking the value of partic- ular assets. The publisher (not the developer, about whom we know next to nothing), is the sole party capable of initializing, stopping, and adjusting the production of new ’kitties’, metaphorically ’from thin Ether’. While smart contracts cannot be altered, their interpretation can be tweaked and updated to any extent. For instance, new types of ’fancy’ tokens can be added to stimulate value in a declining deflationary economy, as detailed in Article V. Article I goes as far as introducing the concept of ’pseudo true ownership’, as it is only a promise of one that is not supported neither technologically nor legally. Therefore, controllability of NFTs is assumed: it is a social promise rather than a technological solution. Moreover, controllability of assets has been additionally compromised in CryptoKitties, when the proprietary block- chain was introduced, as laid out in Article II. • Trust. The intricate notion of trust within CryptoKitties demands a deeper exploration into the game’s human element and its players’ values. This goes beyond the scope of a typical game case study and its rules. This need arises from the anticipated yet sometimes counter-intuitive ’second moral- ity’ (see page 36), which is common in multiplayer games. As explained in section 3.4, trustlessness is a typical state in virtual worlds and games, particularly when there is competition or free trade between players. From my observations, CryptoKitties was similar to other online games regarding trust and trustlessness. However, it leaned more towards dark and treacherous play (see page 37) ethically, when compared to much safer casual multiplayer games, as mentioned in Articles II, IV, and VI. This, as section 3.2 argues, is due to introduction of the real-world money cash-out possibility into its vir- tual economy. 83Acta Wasaensia 6.2 Implications for game design So far, the human aspect appears appears underrepresented in academic studies of NFTs (see section 3.1). I hope that my research have pointed towards the impor- tance of the anthropological perspective into the study of blockchain assemblages (see page 14), even though I myself have not had such a goal in mind when starting this research. This perspective will be even more important to the practice of de- signing crypto games, if their designers intend to create games that also have value for the gaming community in general (see section 3.3 on its conflicting values). As of 2024, crypto games are at yet another low point of their factual adoption, which took a more or less familiar route in terms of innovation acceptance. Ac- cording to Latour (1987), the initial step in disseminating an innovation is to involve other actors and encourage their belief in it. The subsequent step is ’blackboxing’ the technology, which allows the innovators to maintain control over it (see, for example, Article II of this dissertation). Crypto games have made this step at least twice as for now, in 2017 and 2020 (see section 2.5) - and yet, mass adoption has not occurred. Generally, at the next stage of adoption, the technology is disseminated among non- believers (at least, if it exists and actually works, which may already be a problem with blockchain). If the innovators fail in this regard, a new theory could potentially ”shrink back to become the idee fixe of some lunatic in an asylum” (Latour, 1987, p. 121). As of 2024, the blockchain imaginary may be dangerously close to this stage (see (Tjahyana, 2022) on the community of crypto traders who self-identify as ’lunatics’). My research suggests that one of the reasons for that might be that the value of NFTs in games is constructed by their designers based on the affordances of blockchains in the first place (see section 2.1), rather than on the needs of human players (see section 3.3) or even game designers themselves (see Article IV on contributions of fans to the game’s design). Crucially, crypto game designers need to consider individuals and groups who as- sign value to NFTs to be at least as important in this process as blockchain it- self. Outside of this relational network, tokens themselves do not have inherent value, and there is no such mythical thing as ’the invisible hand of the market’. Instead, value is constructed in a techno-social reality involving human and non- human traders. As detailed in section 2.3, production of technological innovations is also a socially constructed process, which becomes especially important when designing spaces for collective co-creation of value, that is, multiplayer games. The technological platform itself is, of course, important, but its potential at value creation is still actualized within a collective that interacts with it. Such as, crypto games may possess certain degrees of transparency, security, and disintermediation; these features, however, are also the first to be challenged in the process of play (see 84 Acta Wasaensia Figure 7). My research has benefited from the transparency of Ethereum ledgers, which provided open market data about all blockchain transactions. However, it also revealed various tools and strategies to circumvent this transparency. These include trading on external markets like OpenSea (Article II), managing multiple wallets in the game (Article IV), ’wrapping’ kitties into fungible tokens (Article II), negotiating prices in private direct messages (Article III), among others. The technological aptitude of most dedicated players had its benefits. Even the most technology-savvy players had little control over the probabilistic rules of breeding. To assist them in making rational choices, these probabilities were made visible through community-developed interfaces and breeding calculators, made available to everyone (and likely overlooked by Gupta et al. (2022)). I used these tools myself when collecting ethnographic data for Articles I and II, as well as in my search for the value created by the community in Article V. Article III reveals potentially deceptive behavior such as spamming (Serada, 2023a), but even in that case, the majority of ambiguous claims made by token sellers were exaggerations rather than falsehoods. This is likely due to the self-regulating ethos of Discord, where most egregious claims would be cut short by other members of the community. The value of NFTs is rarely determined by the technological properties of block- chain, even those less disputed, such as immutability. Instead, value is constructed by the players, as part of their shared culture. This is also why this value is difficult to translate between gamer cultures and crypto cultures (see Article IV). Such as, the use of bots was considered ethical in the CryptoKitties community, unlike in prior generations of non-crypto games (see Sparrow et al., 2020). Some attributes are ma- terially manifested on the technological dimension rather than the social one. For instance, immutability, pseudonymity, and verifiability are relatively secure from a technological standpoint and require social solutions to be circumvented. Trans- parency can be evaded by creating multiple accounts, disintermediation is under- mined by publishers assuming the role of intermediaries, and security extends only as far as the weakest link in a blockchain transaction, which is typically the human player. Nevertheless, these conflicts and limitations may represent new game chal- lenges aligned with the lusory attitude. In Article II I suggest that these instances of counterplay against the technology itself might be the most valuable, and even educational, part of the game from the perspective of its human players. Of all the technical features, only immutability appears to function as promised in CryptoKitties. Yet, even it can not be fully trusted as game publishers retain control over the game and can alter attributes previously advertised as immutable (see Arti- cles I and V). In my experience, CryptoKitties at its best was a game where players competed against game publishers; unfortunately, the publishers always won. They were the primary benefactors of all the processes of value creation in the game (Articles IV, V). Besides, the publishers consistently controlled value extraction by taxing game transactions on the blockchain (Articles I, II, VI). 85Acta Wasaensia 6.3 Fair game and fair price In a money game, winning means making profit. T he q uantitative d ata f or this dissertation demonstrates that profit in CryptoKitties is achievable mostly through speculation, echoing previous research (J. Lee et al., 2019). A proven winning strat- egy involves maximizing investments and accelerating trading speed via price bots, yielding higher returns (Article V). This tactic is further enhanced by capturing buyers’ attention through spam-like marketing on Discord (Article III). These value extraction strategies share a common principle: they amplify and exploit market in- formation asymmetries, thereby deteriorating the gaming experience for all players. Nonetheless, CryptoKitties garnered significant publicity and attracted thousands of dedicated players who enjoyed precisely this type of game while it lasted. The degradation of the gaming experience cannot be excused by game publishers and designers’ ignorance. On the contrary, they might have learned their lesson too well. For instance, in section 3.7, I suggest that the designers of the CryptoKitties economy might have taken insights from Lehdonvirta and Castronova about reverse auctions of Gen 0 kitties. According to Virtual Economies, “rare and thinly traded goods are most efficiently exchanged in auctions because they facilitate price dis- covery for items with little or no price history. This also applies to unique items and items with variations in quality“ (Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014, p. 131). This aligns with the general agenda of NFTs, and corresponds to the game rules about selling Gen 0 kitties from developers to players, set in smart contracts. In Article II and on page 36, I note that such auctions have been almost immediately disrupted by purchasing bots. Article V shows how speculators would buy the token at the most profitable low to quickly sell i t a t a higher p rice. This i s yet another example of the concept of a ’rational economic actor’ from neoclassical economic theory being misapplied to virtual leisure worlds. If, as noted on page 41, we expect our crypto game players (formerly cryptocurrency traders) to make rational choices, they will use the game to make money, disrupting the experience for those who play for enjoyment. This goes against the values of traditional gaming communities (see section 3.3), which value, first and foremost, fair play. Fairness is a somewhat fuzzy concept in law, demanding case-by-case interpreta- tion by human judiciary authorities (Ducuing, 2019). For instance, in gambling, fairness is often defined through randomness and probability, ensuring equal win- ning chances for every player (Caillois, 1961). These aspects can be secured tech- nologically by smart contracts (Piasecki, 2016), albeit even randomization needs additional steps to be implemented in a fair manner (Kraft, 2019). Furthermore, de- termining a fair price is not as simple as calculating the relative scarcity of a token (see Article IV). The number of tokens fluctuates throughout the game, and their distribution among players is highly uneven (see Article V and (Jiang & Liu, 2021; Lu et al., 2023) regarding monopolization and centralization of trade). 86 Acta Wasaensia The transparency of blockchain may have helped prevent direct economic violence, as I suggested earlier (page 81). However, it was not enough to eliminate infor- mation asymmetry, which undermined fairness in both breeding and speculation (Gupta et al., 2022; Sako et al., 2021) in CryptoKitties. Social exploits were rare, at least, according to my observations, and treacherous play mostly took place on the technological level, such as arbitrage bots. The environment of trustlessness, typ- ical for blockchain communities, coexisted with prosocial practices of communal play: even though the game rules were intentionally made opaque, the community was always eager to create and share knowledge about the practices of play. The second morality adopted by CryptoKitties players has cultivated a gaming cul- ture with a crypto game-specific concept of fairness. This culture deems it ac- ceptable to exploit newcomers and less technologically savvy players (see page 27, page 40). To effectively navigate crypto games, novice gamers must not only mas- ter the tools used by veteran players — some of whom are experienced traders, professional coders, or audacious hackers — but they also need to accept the virtual ethics of cryptocurrency markets. This includes sticking to the DYOR principle (see page 44), which means, on the downside, that players are solely responsible for any losses in the game, and there is no intermediary or higher authority to protect them. Additionally, they have to master the constantly evolving language of professional players and blockchain token traders, as detailed in Article II. Dark play in MMO games cultivates the same environment of trustlessness as de- scribed in the Bitcoin white paper (Nakamoto, 2008) (see section 2.6). Without a reliable intermediary, such as a trusted game publisher, no one can be trusted in ’treacherous play’ (see page 43), or on the virtual bazaar. This trustless environ- ment engenders a unique type of trust - the paranoid kind that can be exploited at any time. A more fitting term might be ‘confidence’, a suggestion also made by blockchain enthusiasts (Filippi de et al., 2020; Hargrave et al., 2019). This confi- dence also refers to the valuability (or valuelessness) of digital assets, particularly on blockchain. While de Filippi and her colleagues use ’confidence’ unironically, ’confidence’ should be interpreted as in the term ’confidence artist’ in crypto games. Reeval- uating their initial concept of blockchain as a ”trustless technology” (Filippi de & Hassan, 2016), Filippi de et al. (2020) suggest we view it not as a ‘trustless tech- nology’, but rather as a ‘confidence machine’. According to them, blockchain is a confidence machine that creates shared expectations regarding its operation and the procedural accuracy of these operations. In the case of NFTs, this confidence machine generates expectations, even if they are never fulfilled (see section2.4). For instance, NFT sellers often excessively praise their tokens to increase potential buyers’ confidence (see Article III), similar to how Bitcoin gained value when its enthusiasts were able to build ”confidence in the new technology” (Hargrave et al., 2019, p. 126). 87Acta Wasaensia The technocentric view of trust relies on the concept of code as an objective and un- corruptible mediator and regulator of relationships (Vidan & Lehdonvirta, 2019), as supported by the technosocial capabilities of blockchain. This notion has historical roots in the technocentric ’code is law’ principle (Lessig, 2000) from the early days of the Internet. On today’s blockchain platforms, trust is expected to stem from such attributes such as transparency, immutability, verifiability, a nd security(see page 15). However, this understanding of trust can lead to financial losses i f a crypto game player accepts it at face value. As noted in the previous section, key technological qualities of blockchains can easily be overlooked or compromised by human actors, who often act in their own financial i nterests. The goals and actions of these in- dividuals are as crucial to the functioning of blockchain systems as the underlying technologies themselves (see page 14). Additionally, in the case of crypto games, the potential for abusing others’ trust is further amplified by the ’lusory attitude’, which is generally found in online multiplayer games (see page 36). 6.4 Value beyond scarcity For better or worse, introduction of NFTs to the global market has necessitated “a fundamental rethinking of valuation, in the same way that the introduction of the stock market required a new understanding of value”, in the words of normative blockchain studies (Hargrave et al., 2019, p. 125) with whom I do not disagree here. Emerging economic models and technological platforms introduce new notions of ludic fairness, as it has already been observed on the case of free-to-play games (Alha, 2020, p. 108-111). In CryptoKitties, a typical crypto game, any price is deemed ’fair play’ according to the implicit rules the implicit rules agreed upon by the player community (see Article VI). After all, speculation is one of the game’s core mechanics, so there is no shame in extracting value through informational asymmetry or unequal access to resources. Ultimately, the informational asymme- try and trustlessness of blockchain have fostered a peer-to-peer marketplace that is best described as a ’bazaar’ economy (on which see Deka, 2017; Geertz, 1978). The same valuation process likely occurs in the NFT trade as a whole. Based on the literature available during this research (see section 3.2), it appears that one specific value construction mechanism from virtual economy studies — ar- tificial scarcity — has been systematically applied to blockchain-based games both in theory and practice from 2019 to 2023, when this research was conducted. The limitations of this approach in relation to my particular case are addressed in Arti- cle I; the data that contradicts the assumption of scarcity-based value is reviewed in Articles IV and V and published in open access (Serada, 2023b). 88 Acta Wasaensia The articles that comprise this dissertation have expanded upon the work of re- searchers who have focused on the construction of value beyond market exchange value. To start from, Article III reviews mechanisms of value creation from the per- spective of marketing and consumer studies (Lehdonvirta, 2009); a similar frame- work is offered by Hargrave et al. (2019) for blockchain tokens. Value co-creation on multi-sided platforms is also discussed (Hagiu, 2014). Articles IV and V refer to symbolic capital and Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptualization of social value and taste (Bourdieu, 1987). Article VI probes the suitability of ’digital materiality’, which has been suggested as the basis for fundamental values of cryptocurrencies (Maurer et al., 2013). It concludes that value creation and extraction is facilitated through informational asymmetry typical for bazaar economies (Deka, 2017; Geertz, 1978). This dissertation does not suggest that blockchain and NFTs are only useful for value extraction. However, the significant collective acts of value co-creation hap- pened with little emphasis on their technological affordances, as demonstrated in Articles IV and V. In a welcoming and enabling environment, playful communi- ties quickly develop their own shared cultures which produce played and projected value for the benefit of all stakeholders (see also Article VI). Consequently, Article IV recommends using cultural capital instead of financial capital for value construc- tion in crypto games (Serada, 2023c, p. 73). This shift could enable the creation and co-creation of new types of value, making these games more sustainable in the long term. It could also provide stable income sources for their developers, publishers, and potentially some players. This goal aligns with the intentions of at least some crypto game developers, as indicated in Articles II, IV, and section 2.5. Artificial scarcity is not a natural state in past and future metaverses. Digital abun- dance has only been curtailed by legal and technological means, primarily in the interests of publishers and intellectual property owners (not necessarily creators of value). The Internet made an abundance of information goods accessible to every- one (Lehdonvirta & Virtanen, 2010), and digital assets initially promised inherently infinite reproducibility (Lastowka & Hunter, 2003). Technically, assets could be multiplied endlessly in Second Life, although creators of user-generated content often chose to disable this feature (Boellstorff, 2015). Even the authors of Virtual Economies agree that digital goods in virtual worlds can be infinitely reproduced by developers because their production costs are essentially zero (Lehdonvirta & Castronova, 2014, p. 44). This characteristic feature of virtual worlds should be treated as a source of endless entertainment for players, not as the infinite money glitch for game publishers and platform owners. Digital goods are designed to satisfy immaterial needs. Their purchase is, or should be, entirely optional in games and virtual worlds created for leisure. Given the nature of digital assets, major IT corporations possess all the resources required to provide a decent leisure experience for both paying and non-paying users. In this way, these markets can be designed and directed towards digital welfare for the 89Acta Wasaensia majority, if not all, participants. In fact, digital abundance could enhance the overall user experience in virtual worlds by leveling the playing field for both the rich and the poor. Additionally, the concept of projected value that I proposed earlier (page 73) can also be applied to model a standard bazaar trade. In this scenario, two parties - a buyer and a seller - either reject or accept the other’s idea of the item’s projected value. Factors such as use-value (played value in the game) and designed value like scarcity may influence both parties’ projected value and are often used in negotia- tion. However, the final price is more dependent on the quality of the negotiation rather than the inherent qualities of the item. This answers the second research question of the dissertation: RQ2. How is the fair price of this NFT established on a peer-to-peer marketplace? According to anthropological studies, bazaar economies offer the least transparent, least codified, and most free-form price negotiation, relying on the art of improvisa- tion in social situations. The state of the market is defined by informal connections between individual traders (see Geertz, 1978), and price calculation occurs under extreme uncertainty (Deka, 2017). So far, treacherous play in multiplayer games seems to reproduce the bazaar model in disintermediated environments. This is also how the NFT marketplace worked in the case of CryptoKitties, as described in all articles, but especially Articles I and VI. David Graeber provided a comprehensive perspective on the anthropological under- standing of value in his book, Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value Graeber (2001). Interestingly, this book’s subtitle is an indirect quote from Marcel Mauss: ”the false coin of our own dreams”. In relation to my own research, this quote perfectly characterizes both fungible and non-fungible tokens on the blockchain. It is the dreamers who assign value to NFTs, while rational economic actors exploit these dreams by extracting value from NFT holders. In his discussion of alternative ways of creating value in non-capitalist societies, Graeber describes value exchange in the Huron community in the 1600s as a ‘dream economy’. This type of economic organization, nurtured by a society of hunters- warriors, is characterized by unpredictability and ephemerability - just like the NFT community today. Graeber characterizes a “dream economy” as “a society of enor- mous instability, in which almost anything, in a sense, was potentially up for grabs” (Graeber, 2001, 147). This characterization is reminiscent of second morality and the DYOR principle inherited by blockchain adopters from virtual worlds. As concluded in Article IV, a crypto game community closely resembles anthropo- logical descriptions of pre-capitalist societies, similar to the Berbers in Algeria as described by Pierre Bourdieu (1977). Article V draws a parallel with another social group, the ‘nouveau riche’ or ‘the new rich’ in post-industrial France, whose spend- 90 Acta Wasaensia ing habits were outlined by Bourdieu (1987). This social class represents capitalist wealth accumulation, but its tendency for conspicuous consumption is more cultur- ally than economically motivated. The ritualistic opulence of ‘the new rich’ is not entirely dissimilar to potlatch rituals in Native American Northwest Coast societies (Graeber, 2001) - and crypto celebrities of our generation seem to adopt the same lifestyle, as I argue elsewhere (Serada, 2024). Graeber likens the ’dream economy’ to the ephemeral bubble economy of specula- tive trading in American society, a significant aspect of US culture (Fraser, 2009). Both Graeber and Fraser suggest that traders in these economies are at least sub- tly aware that the bubble will burst. However, many still choose to believe in a technically impossible future in which their wealth will grow indefinitely. I refer to this as confidence building in blockchain assemblages (page 87). In Latour’s early work 1987, this confidence can lead to financial investments from even richer pa- trons, and the blockchain hype has provided an even more direct route to it, albeit temporarily (see page 2). This anthropological approach answers the third research question of my disserta- tion. RQ3. How can the value of NFTs in CryptoKitties be interpreted through other forms of value in society? 6.5 The final answers In my research, I hope to have synthesized the core concepts of gaming and block- chain, while focusing on the shared value and significance that seemingly deceptive and treacherous crypto games hold for their human players. The research questions of my dissertation are answered as follows. RQ1: What constitutes the value of a CryptoKitties NFT? The value of a CryptoKitties NFT is situated within a three-dimensional model that takes into account the designed value (game-as-designed), played value (game-as- played), and projected value (game-as-advertised) (see page 75). RQ2. How is the fair price of this NFT established on a peer-to-peer marketplace? The marketplace operates as a ’bazaar economy’, shaped by the environment of informational asymmetry and trustlessness provided by the blockchain platform. The fair price of an NFT on a peer-to-peer marketplace represents either the buyer’s or the seller’s projected value of the traded item. Designed and played value may influence the final price, but neither of them define it. The lusory attitude of both players constructs a second morality within the game world, according to which any price is fair on the free market (see page 90). 91Acta Wasaensia RQ3. How can the value of NFTs in CryptoKitties be interpreted through other forms of value in society? The process of constructing value in NFTs is akin to the processes of construct- ing symbolic capital in pre-capitalist societies, as highlighted by cultural anthro- pologists (such as Clifford Geertz and early Pierre Bourdieu) and summarized by David Graeber (see page 91). To understand the construction of value on the block- chain, researchers must move beyond a purely technocentric perspective, prioritize the social aspect in technosocial perspectives, and consider the human element in ”more-than-human” perspectives on blockchain assemblages (see section 2.3). 6.6 Limitations The central limitation of my research is the inability to make definitive conclusions about the broader NFT market. Quantitative studies of ’big data’ on blockchain have attempted this (see section 3.2), but these studies have not acknowledged the played value of crypto games, which I hope to have outlined in Articles. Moreover, slightly different economic conditions on the cryptocurrency market have already produced two distinctly different generations of crypto games (represented by col- lectible games and play-to-earn games), and a new generation may emerge soon. I addressed this limitation with a three-dimensional model of value that is abstract enough to be applied to all types of games, not necessarily on blockchain (see sec- tion 5.2). The second significant limitation stems from my mixed-methods approach, which only reveals selected aspects of the phenomenon. For instance, quantitative data was sampled from much larger datasets online that were available as open data. However, these were much more challenging to make sense of in their entirety. The sense-making process necessarily involved subjective interpretation, which I con- ducted primarily through netnography. As an ethnographic method, netnography is subjective because understanding social phenomena cannot be objective. The netnographic approach aims to ”acknowledge, first a nd f oremost, t he importance of techno-culturally mediated communications in the social lives of network mem- bers” (Kozinets, 2015, p. 67). In this regard, I hope I have clearly identified my subjective position as a researcher, so appropriate adjustments can be made to rein- terpret my work for other purposes. For example, blockchain enthusiasts may find some of my findings useful for their future projects, and I sincerely hope they do. 92 Acta Wasaensia 6.7 Future directions Blockchain enthusiasts often envision a future with endless demand for virtual goods, making each immutable NFT valuable to someone or for something. How- ever, a more probable scenario is the limitless supply of constantly reinvented scarci- ties, as witnessed in CryptoKitties. Therefore, speculative blockchain studies should consider abundance, not scarcity, as the baseline characteristic of blockchain-based economies. This research initially focused on the technological attributes of digital tokens and their linguistic representations, as evident in Articles III-VI. However, the most insightful findings were about the societal interactions of the buyers and sellers. In- vestigating crypto collectives is crucial to understand the ’tokenomics’ of broader blockchain systems, aligning with the modern, more-than-human perspective of sci- ence and technology studies. In the words of Olli Pyyhtinen, ”There is no collective without an object, and no object without the collective” (Pyyhtinen, 2016, p. 47); a comprehensive understanding requires considering both aspects. The verifiability of blockchain presents additional technological challenges. While digital abundance is not impossible in a proprietary virtual world or a centralized platform, facilitating it in a truly decentralized economy on a blockchain platform is either criminally insecure or prohibitively expensive. For instance, the cost of pro- duction (minting) NFTs can be significant in the latter case (see section 2.1). Most likely, decentralization, disintermediation, and pseudonymity will be abandoned in the next iteration of crypto games for the sake of security and efficiency. When thinking about the future of crypto games, I cannot help but wonder what will be left of the technological attributes of blockchains. They may become primarily social and speculative assemblages on top of conventional web technologies (as it is already happening with Telegram-based crypto games, see The Bell (2024)). 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