Blockchain Gaming. It’s a world of it’s own. It’s ‘Ready Player One’ incorporated into gaming.
Before reading this article, it is recommended to read: Introduction to Blockchain to get well versed with the concept of blockchain.
Part-1: Transparency, Proven Rarity and True Ownership
-
Transparency:
When games use third party distribution platforms like steam, they lose a large chunk of revenue (about 30% average) which is a lot, and they can’t really do anything about it as other platforms don’t have that much reach.Blockchains provide a platform for this and aid a transparent economy which gives the entire proceed to the developers and also enables crowdfunding. So many games have made handsome money in blockchain already; i.e- millions and millions worth even without being released, and this has been made possible due to the transparency of the blockchain, the fact that one can see all the transactions and what the devs are doing with the funds they have received.
- A subset of this transparency is Proven Rarity:
Let’s understand this with an example, take hearthstone, what is the meaning of legendary cards in a card game? Supposedly, it’s extra powerful/unique cards which is rare, like it ‘should’ only be with a few players, but is it the case? The only thing that defines rarity in such centralized games is the fact that it is surrounded by golden banner and costs the most, that’s it. Many players can have the same legendary card which kind of leaves the rarity part useless. It’s just a powerful card.Blockchain solves this, take Gods Unchained for example, we can see the instances of each card in existence directly on the blockchain. And legendaries are actually rare, not everyone has them. Cards with ‘Mythic’ rarity are printed only 4 times in a year! And that really drives the value. (Last one was sold for $60, 000 and the game wasn’t even released!).
- Last one for this article, but definitely not the least is the True Ownership:
One starts playing a game, suppose Clash Royale, he buys gems and purchases some packs to get his favorite legendary, he is rocking the card. 2 years down the line, he gets bored of the game, he decides to quit. What happens to all the time and money he spent on the game? Just like that, gone.
But… If he was to play the same game powered by blockchain, he will never lose access and value for your assets,
Want to quit the game? Sell the assets.
Want a different card but don’t want to spend extra money? Trade it
Playing as a Free-to-play player? Blockchain has one covered in this aspect also! Games like MyCryptoHeroes gives away various heroes for free which can then be sold on third party marketplaces.
And, the most important thing in true ownership, people feel very sad when their favorite game is shutdown due to low playerbase. Blockchain solves this as even if a game shuts down, one retains the assets in his wallet and a third party dev can come in and use those assets to create a game. In this way, one’s assets are kind of immortal (Unless he burns them, which is a different story altogether, read in the bonus section).
So, this wraps up the first article on how blockchain is used in gaming and how it is revolutionizing the sector, keep an eye out for next part/s.
Bonus:
Burning assets:
There is no real way to delete the assets once on the blockchain, but people have found an ingenious way, just send whatever one wants to ‘burn’ to another inaccessible address.
It has become a standard to send it to the address:
0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
It is mutually believed that no one has the private key (password for wallets) to this random address, hence it is thought lost (burned).
P.S:
One can try finding the private key for this wallet, it has millions and millions worth of ether and assets. Pretty simple- 1 in 2^160 per attempt. Near enough to zero that you could convert the entire solar system to a computer and try until the end of the universe and never succeed!