STEPN: GameFi 2.0, bodily awareness, higher happiness, and social attributes
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STEPN: GameFi 2.0, bodily awareness, higher happiness, and social attributes
STEPN users address the long-overlooked psychological demands for dual identity anxiety in virtual and physical worlds within the GameFi 1.0 context, achieving consensus-driven culture and practical implementation through a triad of spiritual values, fitness philosophy, and social attributes.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Mingzin, Jinji金桔
The web3.0 world can be defined as a space formed by virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), where power over defining "reality" and expressing its digital representation is realized. However, the intricate relationship between this "hyperreal simulation" and the physical world inevitably creates significant ambiguity with reality. Prior to this, games like *Call of Duty* and *Battlefield* had already blurred the boundaries between the real and virtual worlds by incorporating large-scale real-world events—such as wars—into their narratives.
With continuous innovation in blockchain-based gameplay mechanics, new business models have given rise to GameFi. GameFi represents the gaming industry’s transformation toward a “rentier capitalism,” adopting a fully assetized operational model for profit generation. In GameFi 1.0, due to drastically reduced entertainment incentives, players voluntarily become emotionless “gold-farming machines” driven solely by capital incentives. This exacerbates collective identity anxiety among users in virtual environments, transforming games from entertainment products (or those with deeper educational or social value) into mechanical, binding labor.
In contrast to GameFi 1.0, GameFi 2.0 platforms represented by STEPN are enhancing offline scalability, social attributes, and interoperability between virtual and physical spaces. STEPN addresses the long-ignored psychological demands within the GameFi 1.0 paradigm—specifically, dual identity anxiety across virtual and physical worlds—through a triad of spiritual value, fitness philosophy, and social connectivity, thereby achieving cohesive cultural consensus and tangible real-world integration.
STEPN attempts to resolve the inherent contradiction symbolized by entertainment and investment in traditional GameFi. GameFi 1.0, which prioritizes investment returns, has long suffered from the following issues:
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- Most schemes lack sustainable economic models; after reaching peak values, both NFT prices and user numbers inevitably enter a prolonged decline.
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- Core aspects such as game experience, innovation, cultural development, and community building are neglected, turning projects into short-term speculative tools disconnected from real-world values.
Through marketing a lifestyle, STEPN offers users the possibility of gaining fulfillment through actual physical activity in the real world—not passive consumption-driven pleasure—enabling them to earn while exercising, achieving both financial and spiritual satisfaction. This highlights how GameFi 2.0 emphasizes not only game richness and economic returns but also community values and emotional connection.
This article analyzes the characteristics and future development of GameFi 2.0 using STEPN as a case study, offering reasoned insights.
X-to-Earn: Conveying the Core Value of X
1. Community-Centric: Long-Term, Multi-Level Consumption
Unlike GameFi 1.0, which emphasizes short-term play-to-earn gains, GameFi 2.0 exemplified by STEPN treats in-game items (NFTs)—such as running shoes with varying attributes—not just as tradable assets on secondary markets, but also integrates lifestyle marketing to help players establish identity, emphasizing social attributes. By incorporating non-virtual experiences, it drives both social engagement and consumption.
“With Game-Fi, STEPN aims to nudge millions toward a healthier lifestyle, combat climate change and connect the public to Web 3.0, all while simultaneously hinging on its Social-Fi aspect to build a long-lasting platform fostering user generated Web 3.0 content.”
“通过Game-Fi，STEPN将目标定位于推动数百万人过上更健康的生活方式，防止气候变化，并连接普罗大众到Web 3.0。同时依靠其Social-Fi来建立一个长久的平台，以培养用户生成的Web 3.0内容。”
STEPN's whitepaper explicitly states its unique vision—promoting healthy, low-carbon lifestyles and establishing a Social-Fi platform. Web3.0 collaboration is inherently community-driven. For GameFi to function sustainably and effectively, it must rely on multi-level consumption rooted in positive community culture, rather than merely serving as a short-term speculative investment vehicle. The depth of a community lies in gathering users who share similar values and preferences. Under such collaborative expectations, the source of player fulfillment necessarily shifts from service-based satisfaction to one centered on value and emotional attachment.
2. Value Projection: Shared Cultural Anxiety and Bodily Consciousness as Spiritual Needs
While GameFi 1.0 focuses on external asset value, GameFi 2.0 accurately redirects attention inward—toward a shared postmodern anxiety and spiritual desolation. People no longer believe in a bright future; individuals increasingly feel nihilistic and suspended. To cope with this unpredictable sense of postmodern crisis, the body—the only entity in the physical world that can affirm one’s subjectivity—becomes the final stronghold.
NFT PFP projects like mfers have succeeded by capturing this sense of loss and offering compensatory psychological fulfillment in virtual spaces. Similarly, GameFi 2.0 projects like STEPN, which empower users to reclaim self-worth in the physical world, are bound to resonate. All successful projects share a common foundation: a collective spiritual and cultural ethos that attracts massive user adoption and fosters highly engaged communities. Unlike GameFi 1.0, GameFi 2.0 simultaneously satisfies the needs of earning money, achieving spiritual fulfillment, and preserving authenticity in the physical world.
The essence of this pursuit of self-worth reflects an absence of the “self”—as Gérard Pommier described: “I have become a tourist of my own life, a visitor in the museum of my existence.” Virtual worlds amplify this fragmentation: we sit before computers, constantly shaping our online personas through community participation and discourse, disciplining ourselves from an observer's perspective, yet failing to deliver any essential, creative, lasting, or genuinely felt fulfillment in the real world. A well-designed GameFi 2.0 game offers precisely this missing possibility—not passively seeking value to fill spiritual voids, but actively creating and asserting bodily sovereignty.
3. Spiritual Value Creates Higher Pleasure: From Play-to-Earn to Play-With-Earn
Everyone lives under the anxiety of symbolically constructed lifestyles. Consumerism exploits human weaknesses—extending and amplifying values like greed and envy—to deliver stimuli with longer feedback loops and higher thresholds. Yet as humans, we must strive for superior, higher-quality values that offer long-term satisfaction and benefits. Our demands naturally shift from quantitative accumulation to qualitative pursuit, increasingly emphasizing spiritual fulfillment. Only products capable of continuously attracting users to project spiritual value—and enabling them to reconstruct that value—can attract and retain large user bases. Such value must resonate deeply with users’ sense of self-identity.
Through STEPN’s gamified fitness mechanism, people gain direct and simple spiritual satisfaction: physical exercise continuously reinforces the user’s belief in self-improvement through movement, aligning with the postmodern desire to constantly negate the present self in pursuit of something better—the good, the better, with the goal always lying in the future. This pursuit of improvement further strengthens the desire for health as a core value.
According to philosopher John Stuart Mill’s hierarchy of pleasures, lower pleasures require only basic faculties and satisfy animalistic desires akin to “lust” or “gluttony”—thus easily attainable. Higher pleasures, conversely, involve longer feedback cycles and yield deeper, more profound satisfaction.
GameFi 1.0 emphasizes investment returns, delivering happiness rooted in external needs (money, tokens). The core of this joy is pain avoidance—an atmosphere of base gratification. In contrast, the fulfillment offered by GameFi 2.0 platforms like STEPN (and letmespeak, another strong example) runs deeper, manifesting rich layers of spiritual enrichment. This value transcends domains—it holds meaning in the body, in symbols, and across both Web3.0 and Web2.0 worlds. Through movement, users actively master their bodies, create spiritual value, generate income, and resist postmodern existential anxiety.
External value “drives” or “tempts” players into investing, but intrinsic value is what fundamentally motivates emotional investment and long-term participation. This value must be tangible, personally felt, and collectively shareable.
4. Post-Pandemic Era: Exercise, Low Barriers, Real-World Value
STEPN encourages users to walk, jog, or run to earn tokens and participate in transactions. It not only meets the increased demand for physical activity in the post-pandemic era but also taps into users’ aspirations for health and self-discipline. Its extremely low entry barrier makes STEPN a universally accessible and needed gaming mechanism.
Since its launch in December 2021, STEPN has experienced exponential user growth, rising from 1,500 daily active users in January 2022 to nearly 100,000. This initial surge was primarily driven by its incentive structure—loyal users could earn hundreds of dollars per day. But STEPN’s appeal goes beyond monetary rewards. The global pandemic has left many in chronic suboptimal health, while digital media’s emphasis on body image has intensified demand for fitness.
The *2021 Fitness Trends Report* identifies weight loss as the primary fitness motivation. At its core, this reflects the postmodern craving for bodily control and personal worth. Prolonged home isolation during the pandemic has further heightened desires for outdoor activity, health, exercise, body shaping, and appearance. According to Strava’s research report, walkers covered over 668 million miles in 2021—a record for the platform—while apps like Go Jauntly, Nike Run Club, and MapMyWalk have seen user numbers multiply in recent years. Walking has even become fashionable—TikTok’s #hotgirlwalk hashtag encourages users to walk about 4 miles outdoors daily, amassing over 80 million views on the platform.
5. Symbolic Value, Conspicuous Consumption, and Externalization of Class-Based Social Needs
In the context of web3.0, symbols become personal capital. Symbols replace the body as objects of commodification, serving as markers of identity and pathways for self-perception. The act of consumption mirrors sociologist Thorstein Veblen’s concept of “conspicuous consumption”—displaying social status and symbolic identity. While consumption creates mass consumer culture, it simultaneously produces and reproduces differences and inequalities. Indeed, consumption stratification reflects societal, class, and social domain fragmentation.
An often-overlooked factor in STEPN’s success is the enhancement of its Social-Fi features. The strength of Social-Fi lies not merely in allowing users to trade or make friends with other crypto users, but in successfully expanding user identity—fitness, beyond being a means to physical health, becomes a cultural signifier of cohesion within certain social classes in the real world.
The fitness pursuits of capital-owning middle classes have reshaped public perception of fitness consumption. Purchasing NFT running shoes and investing capital in GameFi 2.0 helps construct an image of financial stability and strong personal prospects. Within web3.0’s token-based hierarchical symbolism, real-world-connected fitness becomes a source of non-homogenized competitive advantage for users.
How do we empower a great GameFi 2.0 game? Moving beyond GameFi 1.0 platforms focused on shifting from entertainment services to asset-centric trading, GameFi 2.0 opens up a new possibility: empowering players with real, actionable, and infinitely aspirational sources of fulfillment they actively create in their real lives and selves. It fulfills users’ needs for social connection, intangible asset growth, and self-validation across both physical and virtual worlds.
The integration of games, real life, and human nature perfectly lowers STEPN’s barrier to entry—not everyone is passionate about AAA titles, NFT collecting, or trading, but everyone walks.
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