The Liberation of Gaming and Fashion Won’t Be Televised

The esports industry is expected to reach the $1.084 billion mark in 2021, which translates to a more than 14 percent growth for the esports industry, which generated $947.1 million in revenue last year. If a full-blown global pandemic can’t hinder the industry’s explosive growth, nothing will. That’s a foregone conclusion.

And as the highly sophisticated traditional fashion industry turns esports into a hotbed of innovation and commercial fashion opportunity, we’re beginning to witness the closely intertwined link between what were once seen as disparate industries.

But the rapidly growing link between gaming and fashion isn’t limited just to commercial fashion opportunities between fashion designers and game developers. With higher interest comes higher demand, and the demand is high for digital fashion content in games. This includes aesthetic clothing design elements and accessories.

It’s just another sign pointing towards the dissolution of physical boundaries into the digital. The material, technical, and systemic barriers can only hold back the brewing upheaval for so long, as we march ever so constantly towards the metaverse — a fully interactive, layered hybrid reality that transcends every facet of our daily lives.

Gaming and fashion are in the midst of a complete revolution driven by modding — which will eventually liberate both industries from the systemic and economic constraints that prevent them from fully blossoming.

Walled Gardens and Closed Ecosystems

For so long, the gaming industry’s evolution has been hindered by the walled gardens that systemically restrict it — particularly by game developers that forbid modifications to their copyrighted material. Walled gardens are essentially closed and restricted ecosystems operated solely by people within these ecosystems, without any outside involvement.

An example might be game developers who hold complete control over their intellectual property, applications, content, and user data with no intention of ever sharing them with others. They might also implement controls or standards that don’t allow the use of their assets on other competing platforms.

Walled gardens also hinder the development of the burgeoning digital fashion industry. Digital fashion uses specific 3D applications to create models of computer-generated apparel, footwear, accessories, and other fashion items… another representation of modding. That’s because up until recently, digital fashion items couldn’t be created by designers and then seamlessly transferred across games, virtual reality, 3D, and similar content environments with a degree of interoperability. Instead, digital fashion items created for a particular content environment stayed in the environment they were created due to the technological or legal constraints to which they are bound.

Hidden Capital and Wasted Creative Potential

There’s no question about it — modding adds inherent value to the gaming ecosystem due to the immense intangible or hidden capital that it requires.

Modding as a practice natively adds value to the ecosystem based on the context of the immaterial labor it requires. Technical know-how and creativity are intangible products that are prerequisites to all digital gaming, modding included. And the open-source nature of modding is inherently collaborative. Modding culture generates value for every actor within the industry.

However, modding no longer fits the traditional concepts of work and play — and it represents a substantial blurring of the lines between both aspects towards an amalgamation of both. Essentially, modders don’t own the products they create; therefore, the gaming industry has unfairly deprived modders of the right to their intellectual property. This also leaves modders at the mercy of big-time publishers that will aggressively defend their interests with a fleet of well-trained legal teams.

This commercialization of leisure — the play side of things — is viewed by the gaming industry as a commodity. While this is nothing new in the context of capitalism, the commodification of modders’ labor reflects the cutthroat nature of the gaming industry. Not only does the gaming industry profit from selling their products, but it capitalizes, if not exploits, the products derived from the modders’ leisure. Gee, it’s almost as if modding communities hold themselves to a higher level of humane standards than the industry, while the latter shamelessly profits off their backs under the guise of community.

In the long run, no one benefits from going after modders who are passionate about their interests and games. This legal disenfranchisement wastes a tremendous amount of creative potential that is just waiting to be tapped and harnessed to benefit every actor in the ecosystem. And creativity is the lifeblood of every intellectual property-driven industry — gaming included.

Mod Culture: Catalyzing the Digital Revolution

One thing’s for sure: the gaming industry could never exist without modding, which requires a constant stream of hidden, immensely value-generating labor. The industry, after all, is built on the back of innovation and modders have become the primary drivers of continual innovation. Apart from that, we’ve seen how user-generated content extends the sell-by date of a game by driving engagement and interest in it. Modding communities, in essence, have become trendsetters and lead users that help gaming industry devs make their code and engine better — not to mention a constant source of intellectual property.

The strategy that game devs and studios employ in keeping their code under wraps and accessible only via walled gardens essentially serves to isolate them and curtails the power of the content they create. Closed ecosystems diminish adoption and reduce the likelihood that game devs can keep innovating in an era where everything is now open source.

Player-created additions to computer games are no longer a hobby — they’ve now become the industry’s lifeblood. And modding will be the catalyst in helping translate the human element of the physical realm into tangible value.

First Rays of a New Rising Sun

@DIGITALAX_ has taken the first step in liberating the worlds of gaming and fashion from the walled gardens and related pitfalls that they face by introducing the pioneering casual esports platform for all players, independent developers, and modders: @ESPA4play.

ESPA provides a route for casual gamers to get their skin into the esports game out of passion and to consume content they enjoy to win points. These points can then be exchanged for real value so that players can earn a living through play.

ESPA also allows indie devs, modders, and designers to improve their content monetization with the platform’s interoperable Layer 2 platform that works seamlessly regardless of content environment. How? By providing another way to monetize their digital content, notwithstanding the platform.

Lastly, ESPA allows indie devs, designers, and modders to harness the inherent value in Web3, Crypto, and NFT technology with ease. They can just unlock and leverage the features of such technologies without needing to restructure their business and technical dev pipelines.

To borrow a term from poet Gil Scott-Heron: The revolution will be no re-run. The revolution will be live.