The Blockchain Effect on the Future of the Humanities and Game Design

Metagame Book Club: Game Studies. "The Blockchain Effect on the Future of the Humanities and Game Design" by Sherry Jones. Published: July 14, 2016. Last updated: Jan. 20, 2019.

**This page was first published on the Metagame Book Club.

Figure 1.1 Blockchain as a Protocol for Creating "Trust-Based Systems."

Hello!

This is Sherry Jones. I am a philosophy and game design college instructor and a co-facilitator of the Metagame Book Club. For Weeks 3 through 4 discussions, my focus is on how the Blockchain technology can possibly affect the humanities pedagogy and game design practices. In Week 3, Wednesday July 20, 2016, I will share my perspective and forecast of the Blockchain Effect on the Humanities with my fellow facilitators, Kae Novak, Doug Levin, James Willis, Jeff Wahl, and Trish Cloud. And in Week 4, Wednesday July 27, 2016, I will share my perspective and forecast of the Blockchain Effect on Game Design with my fellow facilitators, Kae Novak and Chris Luchs.

Predominantly, current conversations regarding potential effects of implementing blockchain technology in education has concentrated on how the proliferation of the technology will call on institutions to change their educational policies, and/or potentially bring financial benefits to the institutions. Few discussions have focused on how the technology will affect the pedagogical practices of teachers and learning habits of students. Since many entities, such as companies from Silicon Valley, Singularity U, Google, Sony, the technology-centric media, and even the U.S. government, have speculated that in the very near future, blockchain technology may be used to redesign, and perhaps, replace the entire web infrastructure, this could mean that educators' and students' process for documenting, publishing, and maintaining intellectual property rights of educational materials will change according to blockchain design.

Figure 1.2 An Example of Hash Values in a Blockchain.

Recent news reports reveal that the potential for blockchain technology to replace the entire web infrastructure is very real, highlighting the importance of the technology to facilitating information access. On May 11, 2016, Tech Crunch proclaimed that The Blockchain is the New Google, while Reuters reported on July 13, 2016 that an Ex-Google engineer launches blockchain-based system for banks. In an interview with International Business Times on April 25, 2016, Vitalik Buterin, the inventor of the blockchain app platform, Ethereum, even posed a provocative question on whether if Google, Apple and Facebook are threatened by blockchains. If blockchain technology truly holds the promise of creating a trust-based web system, one in which all information is tracked and secured, then educators' and students' methods for accessing information will fundamentally change as well.

Before we can imagine how the blockchain technology will influence humanities pedagogy beyond educational policy, it is important for us to understand "exactly" how the technology works. Kae Novak, Chris Luchs, and Doug Levin already have shared a plethora of text and video resources from the business world to help us understand how data is stored, verified, and secured on a single block of a blockchain.

My contribution to the blockchain conversation will be to share a few, select articles and presentations on blockchain written by scholars and programmers. I also will share my own perspective on the technology. For those who love reading code (or love to understand the programming logic behind software creation), this week's reading materials will feature some of the backend codes of blockchain technology.

Since I also teach game design, I will discuss the possible ways that blockchain can be implemented to improve game design and development. My own methods for incorporating blockchain technology in game design will be included in the discussion as well.

I look forward to having a discussion with you on July 20, 2016 and July 27, 2016,

-- Sherry Jones

See end of page for the recorded live streaming videos of this week's readings.

Articles on Blockchain!

Below is my curated collection of articles and posts written by programmers and scholars on the current and future states of the blockchain technology. Please feel free to read 1 or more articles from each section to get familiar with the breadth of the blockchain debate. I will discuss select articles in depth during the live hangout sessions.

How Exactly, Does Blockchain Store Data? (Programmer Dev Talk)

Examples of Blockchain Client Prototypes (Scholarly Papers + Articles)

The Great Blockchain Data Debate: How Much Data Can Be Stored in a Single Block of a Blockchain?

Some Solutions: Blockchain + OP Return, or Blockchain + Distributed Hash Table (DHT)

Blockchain Technology that Can Support the Humanities

Proof of Existence (Virtual Notary Public)

Blockchain Technology Currently Used in Game Development

Recorded Live Streaming Videos (Review of This Week's Readings)

Published: Wednesday July 20, 2016, Wednesday July 27, 2016.

Video: The Blockchain Effect on the Humanities (July 20, 2016)

Slides: The Blockchain Effect o the Humanities (July 20, 2016)

Video: The Blockchain Effect on the Future of Game Design (July 27, 2016)

Slides: The Blockchain Effect on the Future of Game Design (July 27, 2016)