Most of those reading this follow me because of the weekly discord recaps I posted last year, where I tried to capture the important game information and highlight players’ achievements. I have been more quiet lately, as I have found myself in a lot of separate projects that have occupied my time. The kittens are not forgotten though.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, about what we are doing in this space and who the typical Cryptokitties player is. I will use this article to share some of my reflections.

I’ve added small stories from my real life to show what my frame of reference is for this analysis. Our experiences shape the way that we perceive things, and I want to avoid bias.

How do we view ourselves?

I had a change of career lately, to create a better work/life balance. Shortly after I started my new career, I had the pleasure of getting together with a colleague from my old work space. We had worked for the same company for several years earlier, but never really interacted before. We had attended some of the same meetings, but not much more than that. Chatting about our brief encounters during our last years, my new colleague described how she’d remembered me: “At meetings you were usually very quiet, but when you talked, everybody listened.”

That sentence made me start thinking a lot in the following weeks. My memories of the same meetings were different however. I remember making a lot of noise: trying to turn my arguments into action.

I remembered the frustration when we were prioritized down. People not listening to my arguments was not an option I had ever considered happening. It had been as natural to me as the sun rising in the east each day. And then I realized: this is something I probably have in common with a very large percentage of the Cryptokitties players I’ve come to know. A good bunch of us are people that take for granted that our arguments are heard, because of our confidence in our professions, knowledge and experience.

This was also part of my argument when I tried to explain my hobby to a friend some months earlier. It started out like this: “We are a bunch of people with PhDs and Masters degrees in all kinds of different professions from different time zones in the world, breeding pictures of cats, and talking about it for hours each week. We also spend a lot of time discussing the political situation in the world, daily life, technological development, financial systems, ethics, literature and art.”

It is true: there are also many who do not have an academic degree, but they are at a similar or higher levels in their skills or expertise. I view myself as a lightweight in this company. This makes me conclude:

The ordinary Cryptokitties player is a professional who is used to being heard.

So, how do you handle a player base like that? It is not as if they are going to be easy customers, or allow you to develop your project in peace and quiet. They are going to expect influence, because some of them feel that they know your product better than you, and some of them may even be right.

What are our motivations?

I’ve kept hanging around the CK discord for a couple of years, and I also follow the projects that fellow CK friends are getting involved in. I do this now mostly because I’m looking for inspiration in my daily life, and because I enjoy the friendships and conversations. I go online because I look for a source of positive energy. That is my reason these days.

Other people may have other reasons, and motivations may have changed with time. I know though, that I’m not the only one who came for the kitties, and stayed for the people. And then we have others, like Pranked (or Pranksy as he prefers these days) and Derek, that played this game as super NFT-flippers for profit. Though, how different are we really? Even if our motivations to play are different, our views of the world may be the same:

What is the game?

The problem with a game like Cryptokitties can be described with one word: money. Its existence on the blockchain makes every transaction a transfer of value. This game exists in the limbo between “game” and “business”. Is this a hobby, with cute collectibles? Or is it a business opportunity where you go all serious with building a real company on top? What is a KittyVerse project really? Is it some kids having fun playing with tech? Or is it serious professionals, trying to find out how to build a sustainable business on top of an existing ecosystem?

How do you view your players in this space? Are they consumers, or are they professional retailers? Is this really a game at all?

Then, how are the other crypto games doing it? About a year ago I checked out Cryptovoxels and started hanging out in the discord there just to enjoy the atmosphere. I loved how the creator, Ben Nolan, interacted with the artists and creators entering this world. It was a close symbiosis of people sharing the same dream, and building it together. After a while it became apparent that there were different dreams behind the different builders, and yet, this was a space where creators and consumers were interacting and developing a synergy. I never had time to go deeper into the game, but I come back to peek into the discord from time to time just to feel the love and creative energy. Ben Nolan’s sudden outbursts of enthusiasm in discord or on Twitter, when a new feature is released, still make me smile and is a good reason to keep following the project. Maybe it is this pure enthusiasm and love that have pushed the game to the top of the Opensea sales statistics.

A game I’ve only read about, but never tried myself, is MyCryptoHero. I read an article written by one of their own recently, where they described their view as “Treat Your Players Like a Shareholder”. Looking at the Opensea statistics again, it seems like they are onto something…