Chan’s Ethereum NFT Game ‘The Boys of Summer Takes Inspiration from Moneyball Movie
We have seen in the past that video games have taken inspiration from movies and vice versa. Today we will discuss how an NFT baseball is doing the same. Chan was a college student pulling stats for baseball historian Bill James while he attended Ottawa Lynx minor league games and was the partial inspiration for “Moneyball,” the 2003 book by Michael Lewis that was later made into a Hollywood film. This was way before Chan became renowned among NFT enthusiasts for his essential and innovative contribution.
How Chan Developed The Boys of Summer
Chan worked that summer for $20 per game and called it a “crap student summer job,” but the experience and his love of numbers stayed with him. He has now developed The Boys of Summer, a baseball-themed game based on his 999-character Ethereum NFT art collection that deals with the effects of statistical overload outside of the playing field.
Beginning on August 16, owners of one of the profile photo (PFP) NFTs can change the characteristics of their character, including their jersey number, hitting, executing, and outfield skills as a high school baseball player. After completing the game, the distinctive qualities of each PFP become apparent.
The concept that statistics and numbers are the instruments we use to express incredibly complex tales serves as the inspiration for The Boys of Summer. They are really basic and brutal tools, yet more often than not, they are the only ones we use to create tales. The concept that a person may be pretty accurately represented as a collection of statistics originates in baseball.
Working on Baseball-themed Game
Users credit points beyond baseball to their social lives, time spent studying in school, sleep, dental hygiene, exercise, sex life, and other mundane worries as the game’s plot develops. In essence, it’s an illustration of baseball management that takes place off the pitch. According to the official website, this creates a nature vs. nurture balancing act that explores the athlete’s life outside of the stats they achieve on the pitch.
The main leagues will choose certain players, much as in the real world. Others obtain employment at an Amazon warehouse and experience difficulties with their bills, housing, debts, relationships, and other areas of their lives that are shown on screen as data points.
“This trend that happened in baseball in the early-aughts ‘Moneyball era’ ends up becoming a trend that infiltrates all of our lives. There’s nothing about my life that I can’t quantify,” said Chan, mentioning his health-tracking Fitbit.
The Boys of Summer is barely about baseball; however, it has a lot to do with quantification and statistics. This project is fundamentally about crypto culture, NFT culture, and the culture of the quantified self.
The Boys of Summer Demo Gameplay
The official gameplay video demonstrates how numbers suddenly take over the game’s screen to the point that you can no longer even see your character. The choices and outcomes you make are preserved as metadata to the tokens, which can be purchased and sold via NFT marketplaces, so there is a method to the madness.
“This is how your data looks to Amazon, Google, or Facebook,” Chan said of the mass of numbers depicted in his latest game. “Honestly, I made [The Boys of Summer] for people whom I spend all my time with online, who were some OG NFT collectors who love NFTs and PFPs.”
“This is the performance. Everyone plays the game, makes themselves into data, and becomes searchable on the market,” he continued. “We’ve ended up talking about this complicated participatory performance art piece about the nature of data in society and capitalism. But I will take you there by presenting you with some cute PFPs and a little baseball game.”
Following 2022’s Winslow Homer’s Croquet Challenge, another artistic game centered on a sport, but not actually about playing it, The Boys of Summer is Chan’s most recent experimental gaming endeavor.
Chan’s Artwork ‘Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility
The project ‘Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility,’ which was published in 2017 as an early, notable example of NFT art, is Chan’s best-known creation. The project is a meta-reflection on the nature of blockchain ownership and comes with a 33-page essay upon launch. Each image resembles a receipt that unlocks a blank digital area.
Some collectors see ‘Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility,’ which was influenced by the actual work of Yves Klein, as a significant NFT “grail” project. Through the auction house Sotheby’s, one edition sold in 2021 for more than $1.5 million.
Major game publishers like Ubisoft have faced criticism from players who believe NFTs don’t care about the gaming experience and are merely a way for developers to make money. Even the word “NFT’’ is being questioned by certain executives in the crypto gaming industry. But Chan doesn’t think that his plans are similar to the majority of games with cryptocurrency integration.
Furthermore, Chan shared his remarks: “Blockchain gaming, like when EA Sports puts NFTs cards in their things — I’m genuinely not interested in it, because it’s gonna be a way to make money. That’s fine, businesses make money. I’m not against that or so prurient or anything like that. I just wanna make art and make art look like video games, and I wanna let people collect the art.”
Check out another Web3 Game which brings in a lot of value:
Visit our Youtube Channel, Twitter, News page, and Games page to know more about the Web3 gaming industry. Until then!
