You're reading State of the DAOs, the high-signal low-noise newsletter for understanding DAOs.
If you’ve ever voted on a Snapshot proposal and wished you could see some simulated lightning strikes on screen to celebrate your contribution, you’ll like the idea of gamifying DAO governance. While that may not quite be what we’re talking about, the idea of making DAO contributions more fun, appealing to people’s sense of competition, and rewarding actions on a micro scale seems a good general direction to take.
In fact, it may just be inevitable. Among the many projects working to make DAO governance more engaging and rewarding are the folks at Game7, through Summon. Taking learnings from Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games, Summon seeks to transform “DAO governance for the better by incorporating the underlying MMO mechanics into the ecosystem: ingraining fair play, competitive collaboration, and diversified contribution.”
As the team at Summon writes this week, “[b]y establishing a meritocratic system that empowers the most productive and engaged members of the organization, Summon helps any DAO create an environment where people are rewarded based on merit and not financial flexing. This means no one needs to be an early investor to reap the rewards of the DAO’s progress and growth.”
We’ve been governance focused as of late, but as always we conclude with a TL;DR on some of the most recent DAO ecosystem takes and thought pieces, making it easy for you to cut through the noise and learn everything you need to know about the current state of the DAOs.
Contributors: Summon Team, ab_colours, angelspeaks, Quilia, Warrior, Vi-Fi, trewkat, Kornekt, HiroKennelly, siddhearta
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Author: Summon Team
Image credit: ab_colours
Effective governance is a challenge that DAOs are yet to solve.
Although promising an equitable and transparent system, DAOs are yet to define effective methods of governance: organizational participation is skewed, with decision making often lacking in efficiency and engagement. There are no clear incentives in current DAO structures, and interests aren’t always aligned, making it difficult to rally contributors to move the organization forward.
However, the principles of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) can transform DAO governance for the better by incorporating the underlying MMO mechanics into the ecosystem: ingraining fair play, competitive collaboration, and diversified contribution. This approach can revolutionize the way we perceive and operate DAOs, bringing an equal, engaging, and enjoyable dynamic to governance.
Summon unlocks the full potential of DAOs by bringing these principles of MMOs to DAO governance. The platform enables DAOs to reward their communities based on the consistency and quality of contributions. It gamifies DAO participation to enable rewards, non-monetary incentives such as power and influence, and ultimately a more effective form of governance.