People to talk to about this:
thesis: Loot is a seminal innovation, just like proof-of-work
this is like bitcoin
bitcoin was all the rage in 2013
people had lots of ideas - microsoft and mit thought of all these cool smart contract applications
though we hadn’t even realised what was innovative - it was the blockchain.
when I was in highschool, I wrote one of the first articles about this, “the invention of the blockchain”. for a while, it was the top google result
then Ethereum came along and reinvented things. we used to have ascribe.io, now we have NFT’s.
I get the same vibe of loot
loot is an NFT project from dom (@dhof). The NFT is an on-chain generated SVG, which lists 6 lines of randomly generated adventure gear. There are 10k of them.
loot was the meaning of existence for about 3 days in 2021
interest has tapered down but now there is an entire active community building atop it
the “lootverse”, as it’s called, focuses on…well pretty much everything related to the lore of loot.
interfaces, extensions, and of course, games.
but what’s really underneath loot?
technically -
mimetically
loot opened up the design space for open programmable lore
what is lore? Lore is what you read in the journal of the hivemind
seminal piece - Headless Brands
what does it mean when lore is open and programmable?
it becomes ownable and scarce, like art.
people can compose cultural value.
what was the growth of loot?
loot was the first primitive of fantasy lore.
a hundred different loot bags were created in the 24 hours following
and people started building a whole universe of primitives (like mini expansion packs) in this fantasy metaverse (the “Lootverse”):
with this came a lot of open tools and interfaces to this new universe.
what are the underlying features of Loot?
metadata + simple visual representation (on-chain svg)
the lowest fidelity (metadata) makes it easy to clone
this spawned hundreds of loot clones in the first couple of days
anyone can issue a Loot derivative by coming up with a set of 50 names and items
e.g. developer dao
https://opensea.io/assets/0x25ed58c027921e14d86380ea2646e3a1b5c55a8b/123
the low fidelity makes it easy to build atop
originally spawned as an open map pack in the lootverse
https://opensea.io/assets/0x7afe30cb3e53dba6801aa0ea647a0ecea7cbe18d/7724
maps are essential to video games. 2d schemas of the world, including cities and points of the terrain. These maps were relatively low fidelity - 2d jpegs.
from 2d to 3d, the maps have now been upgraded in fidelity.
To quote one of the OG’s of this space, Simon de la Rouviere:
One interesting side-effect of CC0 + NFT flywheel is that composability & remixing is easier when the fidelity is lower. In other words, the more the canonical reference is up for interpretation, the more likely it can be re-imagined.
Obviously, the prime example is @lootproject, which is merely metadata. It's also why pixelation is sometimes preferred, because higher resolutions are filled in by the fandoms or derivative projects. More room to add and colour in.
How do we understand Loot?
Loot is two things:
(1) the seminal item which invented open programmable lore, a fantasy loot bag, which has spawned an entire fantasy universe of items, stats, games and other extensions termed the “Lootverse”.
(2) the dominant technical flavour of open lore (like Unix is for OS’s, and EVM for smart contract blockchains). The Loot contract has three features to its design which make it - (1) the metadata is just a series of strings in code, so it’s incredibly simple to clone, (2) the Loot bag contents is shown as an NFT, which allows users to see it and (3) the Loot bag’s image is generated completely on-chain, so it is truely robust and qualifies Loot itself as a hyperstructure
The key to understanding Loot is that it’s a new genre - open programmable lore.
Lore - items, stats, languages, etc.
Levels of Fidelity
Lowest - metadata and a simple 6 lines of white text on black background SVG. The canonical rendering.
Higher levels - 3d renderings.
Each level adds more data.
Rouviere’s principle of lorecraft
“composability & remixing is easier when the fidelity is lower.”
for code - when the metadata is just an array of strings.
for images - when the metadata is just a simple list of text.
We can see this in internet memes. Meme templates like Wojak and Pepes (even the og Impact font demotivational posters) are the most remixable item of culture for this reason - it’s so easy to create a meme. I wonder what happens when we attach money to it.