In Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, David Graeber makes the case that a sizable chunk of the labour economy is essentially people performing useless work, as a sort of subconscious self-preservation instinct of the economic status quo. The book cites ample anecdotal evidence that people perceive their own jobs as completely disconnected from any sort of value creation, and makes the case that the ruling class stands to lose from the proletariat having extra free time on their hands. It’s a thoughtfully presented case, but when I read the book a few years back, I was skeptical that any mechanism to create bullshit jobs could arise from a system as inherently Darwinian as capitalism.
I’ve recently been exploring the themes around web3 to see if there’s a “there” there, and Graeber’s book has been on my mind again. One of the most apparently successful examples of web3 that people point to, aside from art NFTs, is so-called play-to-earn games. The most successful of these is Axie Infinity, a trade-and-battle game reminiscent of Pokemon.
In a crypto economy crowded with vapourware and alpha-stage software, Axie Infinity stands out. Not only has it amassed a large base of users, the in-game economy has actually provided a real-world income stream to working-class Filipinos impacted by the pandemic. Some spend hours each day playing the game, and then sell the in-game currency they earn to pay their real-world bills. That’s obviously a good thing for them, but it also appears to be a near-Platonic example of Graeber’s definition of a bullshit job.
Gamers have a word, grinding, to describe repetitive tasks undertaken to gain some desired in-game goal, but are not fun in themselves. This seems to sum up players’ experience with Axie Infinity, which is often described as work or a chore. For example, reddit user am_enjellyka:
It still is work if you think about, at least that’s how I treat it. I don’t look forward to doing it, I don’t enjoy it, but work is work. The only thing I Iook forward to is cashing out and that’s it. 1-2hrs of my days to get some money is fine by me
In fact, in spite of the game being heralded as an example of how play-to-earn is the future of gaming (a message received by giants EA and Ubisoft), it’s hard to find any reviews on Axie Infinity as a game rather than as an income stream or speculative investment, for which there are plenty. As Arianna Simpson (of a16z, one of Axie Infinity’s most prominent backers) puts it:
[It’s] actually not at all dissimilar to the real-world economy. I might be wealthier and I might pay someone to do something I don’t want to do and somebody might, in exchange, pay me to do something they don’t want to do.
But it is dissimilar in an important way: the “thing I don’t want to do” is completing tasks contrived by a game designer. The very existence of these tasks, and people willing to pay for them, might be the purest example of a Graeber-esque Bullshit Job I’ve encountered. It’s worth understanding who is ultimately paying for this labour, and why.
People have made money by selling virtual goods acquired in-game at least as far back as Second Life in 2005. Axie Infinity is novel in two ways, which are worth exploring separately.
- It elevated the ability to earn an income stream through the game to a core feature, coining play-to-earn as a new game genre.
- It uses NFTs to represent in-game items, so the economy is (ostensibly) decentralized.
Play-to-earn
In contrast to other games in which in-game economies have developed, Axie Infinity puts players’ opportunity to make an income and transfer it to the real world at the forefront. As they put it in their FAQ, what sets Axie Infinity
