Last week I had a drink with my childhood friend, and he told me something that made me feel quite uncomfortable.
He is making independent games with a small team of five people. After two whole years, they released a pixel-style puzzle game on Steam, which received good reviews, but the money they earned is just enough to pay salaries. What really bothers him is that there is a character in the game, a blue-haired fox, that players love. There are countless fan art pieces, and some fans even use it to create emojis and print T-shirts. He said, "You know, this thing was created by us, but we can't control where it goes. It became popular; does it have anything to do with us? No. It was taken and printed on clothes to make money; can we get a share of that? No."🦊💔
I listened, unsure how to respond.
Later, he said he had actually thought about turning these roles into NFTs, so that players who truly like them could 'own' an official blue-haired fox, which could inherit and interact in future works, and even the player-made derivatives could have some connection with the officially certified fox. But after researching, he gave up. I asked why, and he said, "It's too troublesome. I have to first teach players how to register wallets, buy coins, and deal with gas fees. If they find logging into Steam a hassle, how can I expect them to do this? I'm afraid the game won't break out and will instead be a funeral first."
He said this with a smile, but I could hear the helplessness in it. A creator wants to establish a closer, longer-lasting, and more valuable connection with people who like their work, but the road is blocked; it's not that no one wants to do it, the tools are just too difficult to use. 🔧💢
I thought for a moment and told him that now there are people who used to do digital content business and have experienced this stagnation before, and later simply stopped, turning back to rebuild infrastructure. What they want to build is fundamentally two things: first, to let digital items truly belong to creators and users, not just stored on platform servers that can disappear anytime; second, to hide all those troublesome wallets, gas fees, and private keys, making the user experience as simple as scrolling through Douyin.
After hearing this, he was taken aback and said, "Isn't this exactly the kind of 'blockchain that doesn't require learning' that we want?" I said yes.
He was silent for a moment, finished his drink, and said, "Then they better hurry up. We small workshops don't know how much longer we can hold on for another two years."
I couldn't answer for him. But I know that the people at Vanar, back in the day, also transitioned from being 'exhibition hall renters' to laying foundations. They should understand better than anyone: creators can't wait, good tools are ten thousand times more useful than good slogans. ⏳💪
On the way home that night, I kept thinking, the blockchain circle shouts every day about 'empowering creators', but how many projects actually reach out to creators and understand their simple wish of 'I just want to be a little closer to those who like me'?
Blue-haired foxes should not wander, and creators should not become tenants in the digital age. If Vanar can make this clear, it would be more persuasive than publishing countless technical white papers. 🦊✨@Vanarchain $VANRY #vanar
