Star Atlas at GDC 2022

Star Atlas CEO Michael Wagner delivered an impactful presentation of the Star Atlas vision at 2022’s Game Developer Conference. GDC is a five-day gathering of industry professionals across all areas of game design and production. The purpose of GDC is for professionals to come together to collaborate, discuss, and share ideas and solutions that will shape the future of the gaming industry. This year’s GDC featured over a thousand guest speakers throughout hundreds of individual breakout sessions. With the meteoric rise of cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and play-to-earn gaming over the past year, the metaverse was a widely discussed topic throughout the week.

In 2021, the gaming industry saw an exponential growth in new players due to a change in global workforce dynamics amidst universal stay-at-home orders. Technology that enabled remote connection to day-to-day activities was quickly adopted by nearly anyone with an internet connection. During this time, both blockchain technology enabled experiences, dubbed ‘the metaverse’, became increasingly attractive to both traditional gamers and newcomers to the digital world. Of the many metaverses that were formed, Star Atlas quickly gained popularity and attention as an innovative platform that combined traditional game mechanics with revolutionary blockchain technology.

Star Atlas is more than a video game, its an opportunity to revolutionize industries and economies

Fundamentally, Star Atlas is designed to be a strategic, space themed, massively multiplayer online game. Gamers familiar with titles like World of Warcraft, EVE online, Elite Dangerous, and Star Citizen should see many parallels in the future gameplay elements of Star Atlas. Users should also expect traditional activities like mining, crafting, exploration, and combat interwoven with a leveling system inherent to many games.

However, the unbounded potential for Star Atlas is much greater than any of its traditional MMO counterparts. In his GDC speech, Wagner describes in detail the limitless opportunities for distributed and decentralized micro-economies within the Star Atlas metaverse. These micro-economies will be fueled by player-citizen creativity, content, and activity — all which will be enabled thanks to decentralized protocols built on the Solana blockchain.

Start Atlas returns power to the people

Powered by blockchain technology, Star Atlas will allow users to own their own content, create work opportunities in the metaverse from anywhere in the world, and ultimately redistribute economic and industrial power from centralized institutions to decentralized autonomous organizations and individuals.

Detailing the history of industry, from the mid-eighteenth century Industrial Revolution to the modern day Web 2.0 integrated economy, Wagner concludes that the collective output of the human workforce has benefitted a disproportionally small groups of individuals relying on “closed centralized systems to maintain their grip on power.” By owning user’s data, content, and creations, small yet powerful organizations have developed non-participatory systems to remain in control.

Take the music industry for example. Artists, signed to powerful record labels, write and create songs that are ultimately owned by the record label. So long as both the artist and label are in agreement, both parties benefit, albeit the record label more substantially so. Should the artist at some point disagree with the creative direction of their art, record labels hold significant influence over artist’s development. Try and go it outside a label? Good luck getting a song produced. Many talented artists have tried and failed over the years.

Web 3.0, blockchain technology, and metaverses like Star Atlas give data ownership back to its users — users, rather than corporations, will profit from their hard work. Artists developed musical NFTs have become hugely popular, connecting the artist directly to their listeners with no label middleman to contend with. In the Star Atlas metaverse, creators, entrepreneurs, and leaders will be able to connect with millions of individuals across the globe. With a relatively low barrier to entry, and no snake-oil middleman involved, the barrier-breaking power of metaverses like Star Atlas will transform the way we interact with one another as a society.

Star Atlas will enable boundless economic opportunity

In closing his Bay Area speech, Michael Wagner imparted his final thoughts on the future of Star Atlas and its impact. As an interconnected experience between gaming, the Solana blockchain, and Web 3.0 technology, Star Atlas promises to revolutionize the gaming industry. The team behind Star Atlas is dedicated to providing the best experience and collaborative space to enable user interaction and prosperity within the metaverse and beyond. Star Atlas will push the limits of next generation gaming while simultaneously advancing the methods by which users will retain their creative expression and future economic freedom. As we look back at the Industrial Revolution as a defining moment during human history, so to will future generations look back at the birth of Web 3.0 and the Star Atlas metaverse as a moment that revolutionized human society.