Have you ever experienced the fear of being dominated by robot players?
Robots are often seen as villains, exploiting loopholes in systems created by humans to cheat. But is that the whole story?
In fact, robots are unsung heroes in games, working behind the scenes to make systems more dynamic and engaging. They may not be traditional heroes in the sense of protagonists, but they serve as targets or cannon fodder, making significant contributions that should not be overlooked. Importantly, when combined with the permissionless deployment and data availability of blockchain, they become even more interesting.
Essentially, robots are just process automation. The tasks they handle are theoretically achievable by humans, but robots outperform humans in terms of scale and efficiency. Most robots are not autonomous agents; they are scripts that react to specific inputs, adapting to changes in status or data feed. They are tools, and whether they are good or bad depends on who is using them.
Take Googlebot as an example. This ubiquitous web crawler silently indexes the internet and keeps our search results relevant. Similarly, spam filters scanning emails or arbitrage algorithms ensuring efficiency in financial markets rarely face criticism.
In games, robots have a much stronger presence than most people realize. For example, they can provide services within games. Non-player characters (NPCs) in single-player games are essentially robots. Whether they are quest givers, enemies, or allies, they enrich the game world and provide interactive content for players. Just think of games like “The Legend of Zelda” or “Dark Souls” – without robots, these immersive worlds would feel empty.
Robots can also masquerade as humans, filling empty slots in lobbies during matchmaking to ensure quick game starts. Additionally, they can serve as companions for less skilled players. For example, in Fortnite, a significant portion of players in any given match are robots placed there to balance the difficulty and ensure you have fun overcoming opponents.
However, when robots transition from guides to direct competitors of human players, a line is crossed. The issue is not with the robots themselves but with their operating environment. Firstly, they cannot fully leverage unique factors differentiating humans, such as speed and endurance. They can react to game state changes within milliseconds and have boundless energy without needing sleep. Secondly, they compete with humans for some form of scarce rewards. Nobody complains about slow-reacting training robots in Fortnite or ultra-efficient Googlebot, which simply performs a mundane task for our benefit. When these two characteristics coexist, robots steal our “fun.”
Blockchain Robots
In the blockchain space, MEV robots (Maximal Extractable Value robots) have emerged. These robots operate in highly competitive DeFi systems, using their ability to read the mempool and execute transactions faster than humans to gain profits.
But the problem is: MEV robots are not breaking any rules. They exist because they comply with rules: the scarcity of block space, the visibility of mempool transactions, and the prioritization of transactions through gas fees. They are simply playing the game according to the rules. When robots suddenly snatch opportunities that humans desire, people may feel cheated, but the robots are just more efficiently utilizing the existing system. This situation is no different from factory workers feeling replaced by robots on assembly lines. Robots are better suited for the task, being faster and more consistent.
If we look at the core mechanics, the tension between humans and robots in games becomes clear. Games are built around a cycle of objectives, challenges, and rewards, known as the OCR loop in game design terminology. Players need to complete a task, overcome challenges, and obtain meaningful rewards. Typically, players focus more on the rewards themselves – experience points, coins, loot – rather than the challenges. But true enjoyment comes from overcoming challenges, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time.
Depending on how challenges and player abilities are structured, robots can easily bypass challenges and directly obtain rewards. This conflicts with human players who put effort into completing game challenges. Take the example of gold farming robots in MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games), which perform repetitive tasks to collect in-game currency that can be sold to other players. While this doesn’t directly harm other players, it disrupts the game’s economic mechanics and bypasses the expected game loop, posing a problem for game developers.
Robots as Game Content
However, the missed opportunity here is that robots, especially in blockchain games, can become content themselves. By carefully considering how we design games, we can transform robots from exploiters to targets: players can compete with robots for resources, compete with them, or even cooperate with them in novel and creative ways. The problem is not that robots are efficient, but rather that the systems they operate in have not yet adapted to integrate them as part of the fun.
Let’s imagine a game similar to an MMO, where resources are concentrated in certain areas and transformed into items that can be used for attacking other entities (players). This is a very common system, seen in various forms (fantasy heroes, pirates, spaceships) with varying degrees of complexity. My point is that if this system has some basic rules to constrain and limit robots, they can become part of the game’s content. Ultimately, they are subject to the same rules as human players, so the challenge lies in designing rules that leave space for interesting automation. In this sense, here are some basic principles I believe in:
Vulnerability and Ownership: When a wallet (or entity) reaches zero life value, the items in the wallet are lost. This means that any robot can become a target and be robbed. Carrying rewards can make them valuable challenges.
Geographical Limitations: Wallets (or entities) will be bound to a location and can only interact with elements in adjacent locations. This introduces significant limitations, forcing robots to move around to interact with different game elements.
Inventory Limitations: Wallets (or entities) have limitations on the assets they can carry. This also limits the impact robots can generate and, combined with geographical restrictions, forces them to make choices.
Energy Consumption: Wallets (or entities) must spend energy to perform actions. This is another condition that creates choices, and most importantly, it can change the priority of robots. When fuel runs out, it becomes a higher priority than the robot’s original objective, forcing it to change behavior.
This is not the perfect recipe for solving all robot problems and turning them into a new form of user-generated content (UGC) in games. These are just some ideas centered around rules that limit the overwhelming advantages of robots and turn them into another way of playing the game. Instead of designing rules that aim to weaken or eliminate robots, we should focus on creating systems that encourage human players to interact with robots – be it through combat, trading, or cooperation.
Regarding the eternal question of “why develop games on the blockchain?” robots can become one of the defining features of the game, a natural part of the game world, increasing complexity, challenge, and attractiveness. They may not be traditional heroes, but they can still play important roles in making games more dynamic and appealing to human players.
Ultimately, robots are what we create. They can be invisible adversaries, exploiting loopholes and frustrating human players, or they can be integrated into game systems, providing content and creating new interactions. Especially in blockchain games, this shift could transform robots from troublemakers into powerful tools for innovation and entertainment.