Blockchain to rescue gaming industry
The blockchain technology has potential to end all the above problems in the gaming world. The games based on blockchain technology will offer solutions for game developers as well as players. There are infinite possibilities that a blockchain has to offer but for starters, there are several benefits that no one can ignore. Here are some of them.
True ownership of virtual assets
In blockchain games, the virtual assets of the player will belong to the player itself and the creators too cannot take these assets away. These virtual assets may be stored in the form of token in the player’s digital wallet. These token can be fungible or even non-fungible. With blockchain games, the player would not have to worry about losing his digital assets even if he gets banned from the game or the company shuts down or he quits the game.
Inter-game compatibility
As the characters, items or ‘karma’ of the games are stored on your blockchain, it will allow you to see your existing characters or items even on a completely unrelated game. It could open an era for a new type of game where characters from separate game genres could play together in one game. In case you are building your own game, instead of building new characters, you can use assets of an existing game or invite players from the large game communities to instantly jump into your game with the characters they already have. This is one of the coolest features the blockchain technology has to offer in the gaming industry.
Uniformity in virtual assets of different games
The design of blockchain games is fundamentally different from the traditional games. They will not allow the in-game currency to get generated infinitely. Presently, in some games, gold coins can be generated by just killing some monster while in others they might be a scarce resource. Blockchain will end this infinite generation of the coins in the game.
End the need for sub-servers
The blockchain technology in the MMORPG will end the need to have different servers or even sub-servers for a different region. Hence there will be no blackout in a particular region due to failure in the server of that or other regions.
Cheap and secured trading of virtual assets
Blockchain will allow the users to convert their virtual asset into a token, making them free for buying, selling and trading at the will of the owner. The record of the transaction will be on blockchain itself, eliminating the threat of fraudulent activities. The game characters, items, etc, can be managed through smart contracts as has been done in Cryptokitties- a blockchain game that created much hype in blockchain industry. Blockchain technology even has potential to offer microtransactions involving the cryptocurrency in transactions.
Cases of early blockchain based gaming
Realising the potential of the blockchain technology to bring the next-generation of online games, the developers have already started using the blockchain across several verticals in the gaming industry and achieved a lot in it. We already have several such projects ranging from blockchain games platform for the development of these blockchain games and the payment gateway to buy games. While some of them are already in the market, some others are in beta version and some have raised funding through Initial Coin Officering (ICO). Every project has its own aims but all of them together seem promising to build the future of gaming.
Blockchain games in the market
There are several blockchain based games available in the market. Most of them are built on the top Ethereum blockchain like Crytopkitties. The game uses ERC 721 tokens which are non-fungible-indivisible and unique. It uses smart contract for ownership and distribution of virtual cats. It is considered as the first non-financial application of blockchain.
Other blockchain games that are available in the market are Ethermons, Cryptopets, Cryptopuppies, Etherarmy. Ethereum is not the only blockchain to attract game developers. A blockchain game called Spell of Genesis is built on Bitcoin blockchain as well.
Payment systems for games
There are several blockchain based platforms which are built to offer selling, buying and promoting the online games. Some of these are GameCredits, Enjincoin, refereum. Some gaming corporations are even allowing users to buy games through Bitcoin like Valve corporation.
Platform for building blockchain based games
These platforms promise to offer all the new features that we have discussed above for the blockchain games. They aim to simplify the ownership, sharing and trade of virtual assets. Such platforms like Bitguild and Chimaera are claiming to get launched this year. There are several other platforms like Decentraland and Voxelus which are offering a virtual space for blockchain based 3D graphics and games.
The blockchain technology has already started expanding its roots in almost all the verticals of the gaming world. From tokenization of virtual goods to improving the betting and payments, every field has been undergoing several experimentations using blockchain technology. While this technology has a lot to offer yet, there is an issue of speed with blockchain, especially when we talk about MMORPG. At present, we have a MMORPG based on blockchain but it is still in beta version.
