Overscale Manifesto
Overscale exists to create uber fun games that respect gamer rights and agency.
lmao, “gamer rights”?
That’s right. The video game industry exploits consumers more than any other entertainment industry:
- If you buy games on a digital retailer like Steam, the Epic Games Store, or a console’s online market, you have no ownership of that game – only ownership of a license.
- If you buy a physical game disc or cartridge, your use of the software you purchased can still be restricted or killed off entirely by the software publisher or platform provider.
- Books, music and movies are almost always readily available in some form, but hundreds of games permanently “die” by loss of company support every year, never to be played again.
Until recently, only DRM-free sites like itch.io and gog.com allow for legal purchase of raw game files that nobody can take away from you – but nobody’s offered gamers the ability to own their games and the items used to play them.
This manifesto is intended to answer every question about how Overscale is accomplishing that and tell you what’s important to us in the process of doing so.
Core Values
Fun First
“If it’s not fun, why bother”? This is a question that many web3 projects have failed to ask. We build games that we, ourselves, want to play – that’s a time-tested method for creating awesome games. We’re not out for trends or the videogame equivalent of busywork. We’re out to have a good time, and that’s the primary purpose towards which all of our products are oriented.
Honesty and Transparency
Lots of gaming companies have systems and policies going on behind the scenes that disadvantage consumers or are designed to exploit consumers’ good will. We’re not interested in that. Being gamers ourselves, we’re committed to never losing sight of who we are, and that means that you can count on us to tell you the truth about our products.
Creativity
We’re not here to make games that already exist. Every Overscale game is designed to offer something that’s never been offered before – otherwise, we’re not making it. More than that, we want to create worlds and dimensions for you to get lost in, and enable you to explore fresh histories, discover strange new monsters, learn new magics, and engineer new technologies.
Longevity
Overscale is playing a long game, and we want our games to last for a long time. That’s why we emphasize the (currently aspirational) element of sunset support and plan to keep making games until the heat death of the universe.
Q&A
A: You own an asset that gives you similar rights to that of a physical product such as a music CD, a bluray disc, a board game piece, or a trading card. Materially, you own a digital token that serves as a virtual representation of something that is not physical. That token is yours to hoard, trade, sell, and use to play games. It is data identified as belonging to you.
A: The same things you’re legally permitted to do with products involving someone else’s IP. You don’t own the Draco Dice or Rift Monsters intellectual property, just like you don’t own the Star Wars intellectual property. You may personally use your Overscale assets for anything that’s otherwise universally legal according to United States law and the law of your home country if it differs.
A: They generate a useless media file with none of the data that gives it value in the Overscale ecosystem.
A: Yes. However, due to our interest in true ownership, we are seeking to develop “sunset support” for our games that gives you the ability to play them offline – ensuring that you can own the game files themselves. While as of the time of this writing this does not exist and cannot be guaranteed, it is a development priority for us. Unlike other web3 games that die forever, we would like to guarantee the life of our games even if it becomes unviable for us to maintain them in an online form. This is an effort that is purely at our own expense as it does not generate any revenue for us.
A: One of the trickiest elements of “true ownership” is the idea that if you truly own something, access to that thing can never be revoked. That’s important to us – unless someone’s cheating or acting maliciously. Although it pains us to say so, we must compromise the purity of true ownership in order to protect people who play by the rules. If we didn’t punish cheaters, they would be able to ruin the experiences of people who play honestly, and then the product might not be worth owning in the first place. In shorter terms, if you get banned, you shouldn’t have been so much of a nuisance that you got banned.
A: To give you the consumer rights to which we believe you are entitled! We want you to be able to pull assets out of one game and use them in another. We want you to be able to trade and sell your assets just like you’d be able to trade or sell physical trading cards. This makes more sense to us with the superior security and protocol of blockchain than with a less secure and public system.
A: Ours definitely aren’t.
A: Provided that it is economically viable for us to do so, we will strategize the best course of action for migrating to where our vision most flourishes. Unless something really weird happens, we anticipate that this would happen before WAX goes to zero, but we also don’t anticipate WAX going to zero. You have to admit, this is a really bleak hypothetical.
A: That really sucks. If you lost access to a WAX cloudwallet address, you should be able to get access back by going through cloudwallet’s recovery system. If you lost your private key for a self-custody wallet like Anchor, though, you’re out of luck. The best advice we can give you is to take very, very, very good care of your blockchain credentials! It’s not on Overscale to issue replacements for lost assets.
A: God’s rugging us all.
A: We haven’t fulfilled that promise yet. Sometimes we decide not to do things we’ve said we intend to do, and when that happens, we always have a good reason for it. However, we’re also extremely transparent and you are welcome to inquire about anything that’s in our plans. The only time we won’t tell you what we’re planning is when it’s a surprise.
A Statement on DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion)
It is Overscale’s official position that casting any sort of judgement on any individual or group on the basis of an immutable characteristic (here defined as race, ethnicity or sex) and not on their merit is cruelty.
“Diversity” as it is applied in the corporate world does not mean “utilizing the talents of a diverse team” – rather, it means “not all looking the same”. It’s dishonest and harmful as it incentivizes hiring practices driven by what people look like – a mentality that stokes division and resentment. Overscale does not discriminate on immutable characteristics, and instead discriminates on merit. We pride ourselves on working with talented individuals regardless of their immutable characteristics and we already enjoy the benefits of a truly diverse team.
“Equity” in the corporate world is a set of handicaps applied to individuals based on how much western progressives believe those individuals to be institutionally advantaged or disadvantaged. It is universally a matter of bigotry, either punishing those who perform well or expecting others to underperform. We prefer contending with the difficult unfairness of life rather than enforcing a hateful system driven by perceived privilege associated with immutable characteristics.
“Inclusion” in the corporate world is a checklist that mandates “representation” of an arbitrary, ever-growing list of human characteristics, many of which are not immutable. This is typically done under the banner that “x should be for everyone”. We believe that nothing is for everyone, that building products for “wider audiences” results in lower quality, and that not all politically fashionable elements ought to be represented in every product. In this manner, Overscale prioritizes soulful design, higher quality, and when appropriate, a true escape from the noise of today’s mainstream culture.
Overall, there should be nothing about Overscale products that would cause anyone to feel unwelcome. We simply believe that nobody wants politics to be a constant in their lives, and this policy is intended to shield ourselves and our consumers from that constant.