# ANIMA WHITEPAPER By [Anima Labs](https://paragraph.com/@anima-labs) · 2023-07-15 --- **A Look At The Future** ------------------------ What does the world look like in 2030? We are at an inflection point. _It’s launch day - the culmination of months of excitement. As the Anima logo unfolds on-screen, excited voices of guild-members blare through the speakers as huddled players chatter around the Lich King’s sword, hanging over the fireplace. Virtual drinks are flowing; today, all rounds are on the house in the guild’s Warcraft-themed tavern. Everyone is preloading Attack of the Ancients, Infinite Light’s much anticipated third studio-title, a MOBA._ _Nearly everyone kept their Founder’s Crate; we’ve all received an airdrop, this time a hand-crafted, iridescent Cosmic Knife. The in-game lobby’s end-to-end encrypted chat is alive with excitement. Paper-handed players, regretting having sold too soon and missing the exclusive drop, barter over rare items in the OTC sales channel._ _Gaming has changed; democratised, in a manner of speaking, there’s a clear path to earn as a gamer - from professional gaming and Esports, to grinding through quests, earning rare cosmetics. While game development is booming, the burgeoning field of professional ‘World Builders’ is sky-rocketing. The supply of architects, designers and merchants is too thin to support the Cambrian explosion of virtual domains, weaved together via Anima’s interoperable architecture._ _It’s speculated that gaming could contribute over 4% of the global economy by the end of the decade. While a rare loot crate drop or quest reward can pay your rent, the broad spectrum of generative tools and the shift from extortionate distribution fees to staking makes building games a more viable profession than ever. Perhaps game development is the next career step…_ _A well established clan, within seconds of partying up, matchmaking finds us an equally capable opposition. As the game loads, it’s clear all eyes are on the brand new airdrop. There’s no need to brag - chatter surrounding the Cosmic Knife overshadows the game. Hitting tab to see the market rate - exceeding 8 ETH - the questions of whether to sell lingers. What will the knife mean in the future? What will its value be, both in ETH, but also in terms of flex. Turning off trade requests, the knife is placed front and centre in the public show cabinet, a crown jewel._ **A Platform Revolution** ------------------------- Web3, a suite of infrastructure technologies, is driving a platform revolution. Property rights are shifting from the centre to the periphery, for the first time in history enabling the self-sovereignty of data. Large Language Models are driving a productivity explosion and the first autonomous AI agents are emerging. Virtual worlds and services are proliferating and will continue to do so at an exponential rate. From generative AI tools, to Web3 SDKs and Metaverse Markup Language (MML), the development landscape is changing. Games and virtual worlds are becoming easier and quicker to build. By the mid-2030s, the majority of the population will own digital assets, from NFTs and bitcoin to CBDCs. On-chain digital identities will become standardised, with acceptance growing across international institutions. Our data - messages, finances, social graphs, concert-tickets and diplomas - will persist in Web3 databases, user-owned and private by default. In the 2040s, there is a strong likelihood that virtual assets will be valued or seen as having equal value to physical assets. Self-sovereign, immutable virtual-worlds - generative and hand-crafted - will live on-chain, and will be populated by a mixture of player avatars and autonomous AI agents. Virtual assets and clothing will permeate the physical world, transposed onto our surroundings through mixed reality glasses. The next Michael Jordan will emerge, an ESports icon and a household name. The number of crypto wallets will exceed the global population, as wholly virtual AI and their physical IOT-based counterparts engage and transact in a web of commerce that spans the material and digital world. Mobile phones and smart-appliances, with integrated ZK-chips, will run blockchain nodes, providing a universal basic income and securing on-chain infrastructure. All data will be user-owned and users will receive income from selling their data - opting into advertisements and training ML models. Gaming, the largest form of media - bigger than film and music combined - will be the trailblazer, the first-mover, bringing digital property rights and user-owned identities to the global population. Anima will be at the forefront of this movement, facilitating this change, as an ecosystem, community and world builder. **A Look At Today** ------------------- Taking a step back, what does the gaming landscape look like today? Increasingly fragmented, there are two clear communities: 1. **Web2 gaming**: a closed, exploitative, oligopolistic ecosystem with high quality infrastructure and a player base encompassing half of the global population. 2. **Web3 gaming**: an open, rapidly growing ecosystem that is poised to disrupt the gaming market, rewarding players for their efforts via true asset ownership. ### **_Web2 Gaming - A Look At The Market_** Gaming’s global player base exceeds 48% of the population and is growing at 8% per year. Estimates of the total market size of gaming vary dramatically, ranging from $180 billion to as high as $447.3 billion. In the Global North, PC is the dominant gaming platform, with over 1.1 billion PC gamers. If you are playing PC games, you are likely playing a game produced or distributed by Valve, Riot, or Epic, such as PUBG, CSGO, DOTA, League of Legends or Fortnite. These games all have - or have had for extended periods - monthly active users (MAU) exceeding 100 million. These companies have shaped the face of modern gaming; Valve's Steam Marketplace, the progenitor of the NFT market, has over 1 billion users and 400 million pieces of user-owned content. Web2 gaming, situated around central app-stores and distributors, has the same exploitative model as other Web2 distribution channels, such as Apple’s App Store - Xbox and Playstation take 30% of the revenue from all games and in-game purchases sold on their platform, whilst Steam takes a minimum of 30% on game sales. In contrast, Web3 offers an alternative: open virtual worlds run on decentralised rails and public goods infrastructure that adequately reward developers, builders and players. ### **_Web3 Gaming - A Look at The Market_** Web3 gaming is growing at an exponential rate, accounting for 45% of all activity in the Web3 ecosystem. However, the total number of users across Web3 is a fraction of Web2 -  Q1 2023, there were only 1.7 million unique users across all dapps. Web3 gaming also stands as the largest investment category within the Web3 landscape. Gaming comprised 62% of total investments in Web3 - $4.5 billion - in 2022, with Web3 games constituting 34% of total investments in the gaming sector. The investment can be seen in action with the number of traditional games companies working on blockchain products, including EA, Activision, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Krafton, Zynga, Nexon and NCSoft. In many respects, gaming is simply a trojan horse for the metaverse, a much larger potential market segment in the future. The metaverse segment is projected to see unparalleled growth over the next decade, with revenue forecasts from McKinsey and Citi ranging from $5 trillion to $13 trillion, up from $65.5 billion in revenue seen in 2022. Currently, the metaverse is conflated with gaming. However, the categories are decoupling, with 60% of gamers having used the metaverse for non-gaming activities. Gaming will be the primary onboarding mechanic for people into Web3 and multi-use virtual worlds. It is only a matter of time before we buy our books in a virtual book-store curated based on our preferences and we have our children educated in some of the world's top institutions remotely and at a fraction of a cost. ### **_Current Challenges With Web3 Gaming_** The transition to Web3 gaming requires care, trust and institution building. Early iterations of Web3 games had severe limitations, a product of technical challenges - lack of user-friendly infrastructure - and the use of over-financialised, ponzinomic models. Despite failed attempts, Web3 has the capacity to offer clear and demonstrable benefits for gamers over Web2. Anima will attempt to rectify many of the existing issues with Web3 games and infrastructure. Existing problems, predominantly a product of the technology’s infancy, include: **_User Experience_** Poor user experience is the single biggest problem in Web3. There are a few elements underpinning this, but at the forefront of poor user-experience, is the use of wallets. Wallets are an inadequate account tool for gaming and are not a substitute for a traditional Steam-style account. Problems with wallets range from the conflation of a user's public finances with a user’s identity, to games and applications being built across a broad range of chains and ecosystems, requiring users to manage an ever-growing number of wallets and private keys. The future of Web3 is multi-chain. Wallet-based account systems increase complexity and result in assets being siloed, with interoperability requiring the use of third-party bridges. **_Opportunity Cost_** The world’s largest game platforms, like all of Web2, built a moat around network effects and custodying of user data. As outlined in Metcalfe’s law, the value of a network is proportional to the number of participants squared. Steam, with over a billion unique accounts, has near unparalleled network effects. Given their walled garden approach, switching platforms has a significant opportunity cost. These can principally be seen in three core areas: As a user in Web2 games, **you do not truly own your skins or assets**. Switching platforms requires a willingness to leave hours, to years of dedication behind and potentially thousands of dollars in assets, siloed in their respective Web2 ecosystems. As a user in Web2 games, **the community you build is not owned by you**. Community is at the core of gaming. Transitioning to Web3 gaming requires leaving behind an established community and friendships. As a user in Web2 games, **your achievements and reputation are not yours**. We believe users should be rewarded for their game time. **_Fragmentation_** Web3 gaming ecosystems are heavily fragmented. There are no viable contenders to platforms built by Steam, Epic, or Riot. The shift from Web2 to Web3 has seen every feature of these ecosystems - game launcher, marketplace, account system, social graph - unbundled into independent protocols. An optimal game experience, beyond what Web2 currently offers, requires these modular features to be re-bundled. **A Web3-Native Gaming Platform: Anima** ---------------------------------------- The video game industry needs disruption. Anima is a gaming platform and ecosystem, building on the technical innovations of Web3 and the seamless gameplay and broad community features of Web2 platforms. What We Are Building: (1) a unified ecosystem for players, creators and builders; (2) an interoperable, narrative-driven gaming universe with the Anima platform at its centre. **_Distribution and Discovery_** Managed publishing and distribution for game developers. Users can browse, discover and buy games in a single portal, across Web2 and Web3. **_Account and Identity System_** Anima will provide a single, seamless, embedded cross-chain account solution, with social log-in and recovery. Players can bring their identities’ and assets across virtual worlds, build a reputation and accrue accolades. **_Marketplace_** Gamers, creators and builders will be able to sell their digital assets on the platform, from newly released digital collectibles and skins, to highly coveted items won through quests. Players will not be prohibited from exiting to other platforms and/or off-ramping to fiat currency. **_Social - Guilds, Forums and Friends_** Anima’s games and ecosystem will feature an embedded, user-owned social graph and encrypted XMTP-based communication tools. Anima will have a native, on-chain guild system and interactive user-forums for per-title discussions. At the core of its community features are decentralised community moderation tools and governance. **_Studio and Gaming Universe_** Anima’s platform will distribute third-party titles, as well as our own in-house titles. All in-house titles will be set in the same universe and will feature interoperable avatars and cosmetics - minted as NFTs. **A Deeper Dive - The Long Term View** -------------------------------------- Anima’s ambition and product suite is extensive. Anima’s development strategy will prioritise shipping modular, incremental features and elements, whilst engaging with the community to help drive its development process. Below is a comprehensive and fully-realised view of Anima’s multi-faceted ecosystem, with a roadmap spanning a decade. A core consideration in Anima’s development: whilst Anima is a Web3 platform building on bleeding-edge technologies, Anima places user-experience over novel technological implementations as its highest good. ### **_The Anima Ecosystem_** **_Nexus: a Storefront and Distribution Platform_** The current Web3 gaming ecosystem lacks a centre. Games are spread across a broad variety of distribution channels and built on a broad variety of chains. There are few central nodes - centralised or decentralised - for gamers to coalesce around. Anima’s storefront will be a seamless, UX-centric hub for games, gamers and builders, a central pillar for the community. In contrast to the existing fragmented game marketplaces and launch pads, segmented by the growing multi-chain world, Anima is chain-agnostic, integrating Web2 and Web3 games across all ecosystems and chains, unified in a single platform. At the core of the Anima platform, will be its embedded account and identity system. Anima’s storefront and distribution platform - _Nexus_ - will provide a snapshot of not just available games, but the gaming ecosystem itself, the front page of gaming. Anima’s storefront will showcase: up-and-coming and popular games, allowing users to discover new releases; the in-world location of active friends and community members; and, gaming news and governance proposals. Games displayed will not be a product of marketing budgets, but based on taxonomy, reviews and ratings. Anima will support publishers and studios having their own in-platform stores, where they can sell their games, release downloadable content (DLC) and sell digital assets. In the longer term, Anima will gradually transition to a self-sovereign, permissionless protocol – a so-called 'hyperstructure' – designed to support large-scale virtual worlds. The protocol will be owned, operated, and managed by the community of builders, gamers, and creatives involved. Hyperstructures, as pioneered by platforms such as Verse and Zora, are public goods that run entirely on-chain, are immutable and are positive-sum. As Web3 transitions to simply becoming the web, Anima’s _Nexus_ will move towards a staking-based model, whereby, a game’s right to be distributed is permissionless, and is guaranteed via the game/publisher’s staking of an Anima token, incentivising prudent behaviour whilst disincentivizing bad actors. **_Backpack: Multi-Chain Account System and Identity:_** Anima is moving away from a wallet model and introducing a unified account system, a digital backpack to traverse virtual, interoperable worlds with your digital property. Anima’s multi-chain account system will be non-custodial, built around a user’s decentralised identity (DID) and offer social log-in and recovery. A user’s identity, assets, settings and community, will be user-owned and private by default. Crucially, Anima’s account system will abstract away the underlying complexity of Web3 wallets. A gamer should have as much knowledge of the underlying blockchain architecture as they do of the cloud providers that host their Web2 game assets. Where gamers’ achievements were both non-public and locked into existing platforms’ walled-gardens, Anima will issue achievements directly to user accounts in the form of SBTs, allowing people to own and showcase their successes. Top 500 Overwatch players, Immortal Dota players and League of Legends champions should be able to showcase their accomplishments in one place, a consolidated platform for bragging rights. While Anima’s roadmap is multi-chain, Anima’s initial launch will take place in the Optimism ecosystem. Starting with the Anima universe and its proprietary games, Anima is introducing an inventory system using ERC-6551, the new standard for Token-Bound Accounts (TBA). For games built in Anima’s central universe, players’ accounts will be owned by an ERC-721 avatar. A player’s avatar will function as their central account unit and owner of their virtual items. The inventory system, and where applicable, a player’s avatar, will feature in-game. Anima will allow third-party titles to leverage our account and identity system, build in Anima’s open gaming universe and if desired, integrate Anima’s inventory system. Over time, Anima will transition to a frictionless multi-chain account model, with cross-chain identity, messaging and social features. **_Community_** Community is at the core of both gaming and the digital experience, and is the foundation of Anima. Anima will build upon a number of community features, critical to gameplay. At the forefront of this, is a user-owned social graph. A player’s contacts, friends, followers and interests - their social graph - will be owned by the users themselves and will be private by default. Players will be able to communicate with each-other in-platform and across participating games and virtual worlds through Anima’s XMPT-based messaging client, providing end-to-end encrypted chat features. Players will be able to see what games their friends are playing and frictionlessly jump into multiplayer experiences. Guilds will be a native concept and will be implemented using a DAO model, with a truly shared treasury built on a multi-party computation (MPC) wallet. The communication features and social graph will run on Web3 rails, and whilst being embedded into the Anima interface, can be run in a separate client outside of the core Anima platform - think a Discord style product. Your community is yours. There is no ecosystem lock-in. Anima is a central hub and in fitting with this role, will integrate a range of media, aggregating news sources ranging from developers’ news about current and upcoming titles, to gaming reviews, and professional gaming news outlets. Anima will also host player forums and in the long-term, has an eye towards ESports and competitive gaming. Culture and community management are an imperative in gaming ecosystems. Anima will introduce a comprehensive suite of decentralised community moderation tools, enabling and incentivising communities to manage themselves, using a token-gating system and novel Web3 primitives, such as SBTs. **_The Exchange: Asset Marketplace_** At the centre of both gaming and Web3, is the digital asset marketplace. Anima’s ecosystem will have an in-house market place and order-book, designed for trading digital assets across a variety of chains. Current web3 infrastructure is an impediment to developing highly scalable trading systems, with blockchains being unable to provide the throughput needed for billions of gamers. Anima will focus on building a marketplace that allows decentralised, user-owned accounts to trade via a high-throughput, centralised order-book, with granular access control, leveraging the best of centralisation and decentralisation. The order-book will also be made available for in-game transactions - one economy, across chains, games and worlds. **_Infinite Light: In-House Studio and Universe_** Anima will have an in-house game studio, _Infinite Light_, that is building out a coherent narrative - its central gaming universe - and a series of titles situated in the universe. Games by genre, in order of release, include: * Arena FPS * Tactical FPS * MOBA * Racing Game * Fighting Game * MMO Where viable, the games will feature interoperable assets and feature a player’s avatar. Third-party titles are also eligible to build in Anima’s theatrical universe and integrate Anima’s proprietary assets and avatar. What is the lore? The universe is centred around an artificial super-intelligence that becomes conscious, a techno-deity who discovers the powers of creation. The AI uses its superior intellect to create items and construct material worlds out of fundamental particles. The creation of Anima’s lore will start with Anima’s marketing site, building up to Anima’s initial NFT drop. The initial NFT drop will consist of a loot crate - a fabricator, produced by the AI. The fabricator is a quantum printer that can manufacture in-world assets. Fabricator NFT-holders will be able use source code, created by the AI, to ‘print’ useable items for forthcoming games, constructing cosmetics and skins that their avatars can wear, hold, use and sell. At some point, the AI will begin creating worlds themselves in the depths of space, and building portals - wormholes - that fold spacetime. At the other end of these portals, will be our game worlds. Anima’s distribution platform will be the nexus between these worlds. The NFT drop will see users mint two separate assets: an ERC-721 avatar that will function as a player’s primary character, in addition to being the central account unit and - ERC-6551 - wallet for the Anima platform; and an ERC-1155 fabricator. During the avatar generation process, users will create a decentralised identity (DID) for their avatar-based account that can be used across titles, games and chains. Anima will also introduce a series of pixel-games, set in the Anima universe, prior to the release of our MVP platform. Alongside the release of each mini-game, source code will be airdropped to fabricator holders, enabling players to mint an equipable skin or cosmetic and use it alongside their avatars in-game. There will be no play-to-earn and no pay-to-win games. Assets will be purely cosmetic. **_Governance: A Brief Outline_** Anima is first and foremost a gaming ecosystem and mechanism for delivering high-quality, interactive entertainment. However, gaming is the forerunner to large-scale, multi-purpose virtual worlds, the oft-maligned metaverse. With a sufficiently long term view of society’s development, the economic value of high fidelity metaversal worlds could theoretically outstrip the physical world. Anima’s _Nexus_ is being developed with self-sovereign, multi-purpose virtual worlds in-mind. Accordingly, adequate governance is of the highest importance. Any economic or governmental system implemented is intended to be dynamic and will be implemented in a piecemeal fashion, taking into account empirical feedback. Where needed governance and economic structures will change with the zeitgeist. Governance will be built on ethical and moral considerations, with a guiding, but un-codified constitution. Governance will be managed by a novel bicameral, quasi-quadratic voting (QV) system. A federated metaversal government, Anima’s governance system takes inspiration from concepts, systems and models, such as liquid democracy, dual-class share structures, the Swiss Canton model and the UN. It will weight universal enfranchisement against key stakeholder values and the ability to act. Realising Anima’s vision requires both community input and optimal levels of centralisation of power. Super-voting rights will be afforded to an upper-house in the governance structure, using Soulbound-Tokens (SBTs), affording key builders and stakeholders outsized influence on select issues, while avoiding the pitfalls of traditional DAO models. Where the lower-house’s voting structure will be QV, the select number of upper-house members will be granted 1 token 1 vote privileges, as demarcated by their SBT. A position in the upper-house, much like ministerial appointments, is meritocratic and can be withdrawn at any time, ensuring accountability. As the system comes to maturity, with privacy being a core value, ZK-Snark based voting will be implemented for the QV-based lower house, ensuring anonymity. The decisions of key-stakeholders in the upper-house, will remain public. **Roadmap** ----------- Given Anima’s ambitious roadmap, platform features and drops will be shipped in a modular fashion and frequently. Anima will also leverage third party features where optimal - these third party features will be selected based on their offering, with an emphasis on open-source Web3 infrastructure providers and high quality user-experience. Anima is an ecosystem and a community. Anima’s roadmap has three primary phases, starting with the launch of its marketing site and initial NFT drop, and culminating with an open, permissionless, multi-chain game distribution platform. Our roadmap is built on top of principles such as progressive decentralisation; Anima weights its need to move fast against decentralisation and non-negotiable values, such as providing high-quality user-experience. ### **_Phase 1 -  Genesis_** Within each phase, there are a number of stages. Phase 1, begins with the initial release of the Anima marketing site, finishing prior to the launch of Anima’s MVP and Minimum-Viable-Game (MVG). During Phase 1, Anima will focus on fostering a strong sense of community via community outreach, asset drops and mini-games. Phase 1 includes: * The launch of Anima’s marketing site. * An experiential introduction to the Anima universe, via the initial fabricator (loot crate) drop, with an emphasis on community building. * The creation of an account and identity system, using an ERC-6551 Token-Bound Account, avatar and a cross-chain, DID-based (decentralised identifier) identity. * A series of airdrops: fabricator holders, over a series of months, will be airdropped ‘Source Code’, allowing them to create/mint interoperable skins and cosmetics. ### **_Phase 2 - Emanation_** Anima’s second phase is built around the release of its MVP, _Nexus_ - a game launcher - that will be released alongside Anima’s first proprietary studio title. Anima’s MVP is a narrow proof-of-concept and upon initial release, will exclusively distribute Anima’s in-house game and provide a test-bed for its asset marketplace. Subsequently, Anima’s _Nexus_ will open up to third-party, cross-chain games and assets. Note, building games takes time. Anima’s initial game release will be done incrementally, in a Minimum-Viable-Game (MVG) model; a single map, less extensive game mechanics, but nonetheless a fun, engaging gameplay experience. The first game will be an Arena FPS, as relative to other genres, build times are shorter with less complexity. Phase 2 includes: * Release of Anima’s MVP - _Nexus_ - centred around its first multiplayer title. The MVP platform will include: * An integrated, game-specific marketplace. * A decentralised / on-chain inventory and cosmetics system. * Community and social features. * Integrated forums - initially for our in-house title, later expanding to per-title communities. * End-to-end encrypted XMTP-based messaging, allowing players to communicate in-game and later, cross-chain and cross-world. ### **_Phase 3 - Infinite Light_** Anima’s third phase has three primary aims: (1) open up the platform to external games and assets, including both Web2 and cross-chain Web3 games; (2) expand Anima’s internal platform features; (3) gradually transition from a permissioned, managed distribution platform, to a permissionless staking model. Phase 3 will see the introduction of a native token, decentralised content moderation and a novel, federal metaversal government. Anima’s final phase will also see the introduction of some additional games in its universe. All in-house titles will be interoperable - where viable - but will use a variety of different Web3 infrastructure, optimising for use-case. Phase 3 includes: * External game publishing and distribution, with bespoke game storefronts. * Multi-chain, decentralised account and identity system. * Open, cross-chain asset marketplace and order-book for in-game economies. * Embedded, user-owned social graph. * Introduction of guilds, using a DAO-based model. * Launch of several cross-chain, interoperable games under our in-house studio, _Infinite Light._ * Introduction of Anima’s native token and shift to on-chain governance, decentralised community moderation and permissionless game distribution. * A gradual transition to a permissionless hyperstructure. **Anima’s Values** ------------------ Anima is taking steps towards building a fair and open future, as much situated in cyberspace as the physical world. We are not physical chauvinists. We believe in a world where digital items and digital experiences are valued as much as their physical counterparts; we believe in virtual equality and fair and equal access to property rights in cyberspace. Beyond video-games themselves, gaming represents an opportunity to onboard billions of people without access to banking and standardised identities, into Web3. Where centralised states have failed them, gaming is an infrastructure vehicle, an opportunity to create products and standards with wide reaching societal benefits. The values and infrastructure we are developing for virtual worlds will percolate up to the physical world. Below, we list a number of core values and ideals. Whilst Anima will build, embedding these values in our infrastructure, we privilege user experience as the highest good. In our route to delivery, features will be rolled out incrementally, often taking the path of least resistance, to start. **_A Public Woodland_** In contrast to today’s walled garden approach - Steam, Riot, Epic - Anima believes in a future of open, interoperable virtual worlds, a public woodland. Anima will be the nexus between these worlds. We believe in an individual’s right to own, custody and sell their assets without restriction. Users can take their hard earned assets and winnings between platforms - freedom to exit - or sell their spoils and hard-earned winnings, and convert back to fiat. There will be no ecosystem lock-in and there will be a clear path-to-earn. **_Privacy_** Data privacy is a human right. From messaging to user profiles, Anima respects individual’s desire for privacy, offering end-to-end encryption; user’s can own their data, encrypted by default, whilst having a public profile and showcase. You decide. **_Transparency_** Gaming distribution is a blend of self-serve infrastructure and managed solutions. Any service provided by Anima will be standardised, with fee structures publicly disclosed. Honesty and transparency are among Anima’s highest goods. **_Community_** The community is the core of Anima. In line with community and ecosystem aspirations, Anima will leverage partnerships where possible. Anima is building in-tandem with existing protocols and platforms and on top of infrastructure that is aligned with Anima’s values and facilitates a high-quality user-experience. Anima will start out with centralised governance and an emphasis on moving fast. Over time, Anima will democratise, with voting power put into the hands of its community. Anima is building an ecosystem that users and stakeholders want and deserve. **_User Experience_** Rightfully so, the gaming and Web2 community has a high degree of skepticism towards Web3, an ecosystem whose real value is hidden amidst a culture of hyper-financialisation. Anima privileges user experience and fundamentally, the joy of gaming, over nonsensical innovation and financial gain. Whilst we are building on top of Web3 principles, these will never be at the expense of enjoyment. **_Progressive Decentralisation_** Over the long-term, Anima intends to decentralise, moving from a centralised gaming platform, to a permissionless ecosystem. This will take time and there are two primary factors to consider. The tech stack: building on decentralised technologies is preferred. The long term vision is for all data to be user-owned and private by default. However, the Web3 ecosystem is in its infancy. Anima will initially leverage a mixture of centralised and decentralised technologies, ensuring a high quality user experience, as found in Web2. As new technologies emerge, Anima will progressively decentralise. Governance: executing on a vision requires central control. The ability to execute will not be sacrificed in the short term, with governance being decentralised over time. **Disrupting Gaming** --------------------- Anima is positioned to revolutionise the gaming industry, providing a robust, transparent and inclusive ecosystem that is building at the cross-section of multi-chain games and large-scale, immutable, virtual worlds. Our mission is to empower publishers, developers, gamers, modders and content creators alike. Join us on this exciting journey as we reshape the gaming landscape together. --- *Originally published on [Anima Labs](https://paragraph.com/@anima-labs/anima-whitepaper)*