Back to collectionA Game Chain Enters Research
For two years, Ex Populus had repeatedly run into on-chain delays, costs, and barriers for players while making games. On the left of the whiteboard were gas-free play for users, a wallet players would barely notice, a vast volume of small, frequent transactions, larger contracts, and an economic model friendly to game studios. To the narrator, the studio's question changed that day from how to make one good game to whether it could explore building a 'console' for more games.
A creative chronicle combining project history with imagined scenes. Story events are not verification of network activity.
For two years, Ex Populus had repeatedly run into on-chain delays, costs, and barriers for players while making games. LAMO had just been acquired, and the industry was deep in a downturn. The studio brought these accumulated problems into a day-long strategy meeting to decide whether to keep adapting to existing infrastructure or begin research on a different path.
On the left of the whiteboard were gas-free play for users, a wallet players would barely notice, a vast volume of small, frequent transactions, larger contracts, and an economic model friendly to game studios. On the right were candidate chains. Compared item by item, Ethereum was too expensive; general-purpose L2s would not make room for games; and gaming chains were either too centralized to deserve the name or short of an ecosystem. None passed. By evening the conclusion stood in the center: if they could not find a chain optimized for games, they would build one. The meeting produced three decisions. First, start a self-built game-chain project for research only, without a public announcement; its code name would come later. Second, form a chain research group led by A-Zhen, who would transfer from the Final Form backend and begin addressing the on-chain delays she had complained about for two years. Third, contact Offchain Labs first and make the Arbitrum stack the leading candidate for evaluation, because Nitro's performance after its upgrade looked strongest on paper. As the meeting ended, someone mentioned that BlockFi had also filed for bankruptcy that day. The room fell quiet for a few seconds before someone replied that an industry burying its old era did not prevent them from drawing new plans.
To the narrator, the studio's question changed that day from how to make one good game to whether it could explore building a 'console' for more games. The downturn offered none of a bull market's abundance, but it did leave quiet time to examine old methods. This was only the start of research: no chain had been built, the technology stack was unverified, and nothing had been announced publicly. A-Zhen and her group now had to turn the wishes on the whiteboard into questions they could test.