Why Game Developers Should Use Blockchain Technology!

in #gaming5 years ago

In this video, we’re going to take two things I enjoy, place both of them in the hadron collider of ideas and smash them into each other at ridiculous speeds. The result will either be the future of the gaming industry or a tear in the fabric of space and time.

The first element for this experiment is video games, the games industry is huge, and by 2020 the sector is set to generate $143 Billion. More people are playing video games than ever before playing games on pc, console or mobile.

The absence of mac from my list is intentional, one does not simply play games on a mac.

The second is Blockchain technology; it’s still in early days despite Bitcoin being 10 years old. But the Blockchain industry is set to grow to $2.3 billion by 2021, and already there are companies exploring ways to bring Games and Blockchain together.

How can Blockchain benefit game developers?

Is Blockchain technology fast enough to host games and the transactions it requires?

What tools are out there for game developers and are there any games worth playing on the blockchain yet? To find out let’s take a look.

If you saw some of our previous videos, we talked about moves the industry was making towards bringing gaming into the blockchain space but what we should really be doing is talking about how to take blockchain into the gaming industry. I know it sounds like semantics, but I’m serious.

During a panel discussion called Tokens and Blockchain in Gaming at the Crypto Invest Summit in Los Angeles this last year, Dave Anthony the writer and producer of the Call of Duty Black Ops series stated that many in the gaming industry have no idea what’s even possible via blockchain technology.

We need to make the case to developers why they should look at adding Blockchain technology to their games, and it’s quite likely that targeting indie game developers might be the best way forward. It would allow the technology and platform time to scale and develop with the complexity of the games.

Currently, there has been a massive shift towards free to play models in games where the income is generated from in-game purchases. Purchases are usually made with some kind of in-game currency. Examples would be the idea of buying V-bucks for Fortnite or Gold for World of Warcraft. The benefits of using blockchain technology here instead are enormous.

For a developer they could allow for purchases of game assets such as skins, weapons and downloadable content using either an existing cryptocurrency such as Enjin Coin or Eos, Ether or Tron or they could develop their own cryptocurrency that can be used across all titles in their portfolio. Crytek creators of Cryengine and the Crysis game series have their own cryptocurrency called Crycash, the coin will be used as rewards to incentivize players and will be used to pay content creators who build assets for the Cryengine marketplace.

Nano previously known as Raiblocks is also being paid out to players of Nanoquake as an incentive, Nanoquake is a modded version of Quake II multiplayer that faucets Nano to players who get high scores in the game. This idea of rewarding your most loyal and dedicated players is a great way to encourage and draw in high-quality players. Perfect if you are looking to place your game as a potential e-sport option. Prizes could even be paid out in their cryptocurrency.

Another great use of Blockchain is that it could be used to give players true ownership over their assets if you look at a game like Starcitizen players have literally spent hundreds of dollars on ships and equipment in the game. If the player wants to sell that asset on to someone else when they are done, it’s actually against the games policy, and they usually have to sell their account in a shady fashion leaving them open to fraud and then if the game devs catch on to it they can suspend the player as well. This doesn’t just happen with Starcitizen, and most multiplayer games have similar policies in place. The blockchain could allow for trading of game assets between players in a secure and trackable way and would let players have true ownership of their virtual purchases.

This kind of trading platform would easily integrate into an online roleplay game. Bethesda really messed up Fallout 76 there are tons of reviews about how broken the whole game is and that in its current state players can’t even trade items with other players. Imagine though if Fallout 76 had a blockchain based trading element. Players would be financially encouraged to scavenge great loot and items, to build good weapons and armour they could then sell to other players. If a player becomes a trader and needs to travel to the other side of the map, they could offer payment to other players to protect them etc. It could be interesting what would happen if someone killed you and stole your equipment though I guess in that case it would literally be theft, a problem I would leave up to the clever developers out there to solve I guess.

The point is that all of these things can be done using the blockchain and would, therefore, be immutable records of ownership.

This leads to the initial appeal of Cryptokitties where every kittie was unique, and some were rare. The data for each kittie was stored on the blockchain, and this meant that the rarity of specific kitties was immutable data that could be audited and it’s level of rarity actually proven. Cryptokitties got a bit out of hand though when one kittie was sold for $170,000.

Blockchain Cuties is a game that looks very similar to Cryptokitties you can collect and breed them but you can also send them out on adventures and while on the adventures they might be gaining experience points or they might find items on the adventure they can wear. I think visually this game looks more appealing than Cryptokitties, but the problem that arises is accessibility. Blockchain Cutties looks like a game aimed at children.

Children don’t have accounts with Coinbase, Kraken or Binance. If a crypto-based game is going to be successful mainstream, it will need to allow players to convert from fiat to the game’s currency all within the app. Blockchain Cuties is trying to make things easier for players by running on three blockchains, Ethereum, Eos and Tron and you can set up a wallet via links on the start page, but it still isn’t really normie friendly.

Once a game can make it as easy to buy as it is to buy V-bucks or Ro-bucks from the popular kids game Roblox then blockchain based games could take off. Of course, if you guys already know of a game that makes buying their crypto easy, please let us know in the comments below.

Something else to consider is how the blockchain gaming space is so new that a startup developer could still make an impact. Building an indie game is brilliant, but in the mainstream market, you’ll be competing with thousands and thousands of indie developers and huge multinational publishers. Blockchain gaming is a niche right now and is a risky market, but for small studios and developers, it’s a potentially lucrative one. Cryptokittes raised $12 million in initial funding, and Tron has recently announced it’s Tron arcade initiative and is investing 100 million dollars into high-quality indie games for the Tron blockchain.

The other great thing is that there are platforms out there that are trying to make the blockchain easy for developers to integrate through free training, devcamps and even SDK plugins for popular games engines.

I spoke with Kingsley Hendrickse a while back about Sushichain and their trading card game in development called Guardians of Axum. His SDK will allow games to operate locally from the player’s hardware but to use the Sushichain blockchain when cards are traded. Other companies such as Loom network also have an SDK for the Unity game engine and an interactive training course to help developers understand how smart contracts are used in the games backend development.

The days of a game being fully operational on release are sadly gone. The advent of BETA and Early access means that gamers are now more accepting games that need a few fixes and patches even after release. A game should be ready to go on release date and Quality and Assurance should have picked up the bugs and problems before launch. Early access means players will pay a developer to be the Q&A tester.

I’m not going off on a tangent here, however, as one further idea for the use of Blockchain in games is to use it democratize decisions in the games development direction. Much like shareholders, gamers will own part of the game through the amount of coins they hold and decisions on the game’s direction can be put to a vote that only players holding coins/tokens can take part in. It’s a great way to engage with a games community and will also ensure that developers can focus on the features that the players really want. Going back to the example of Fallout 76 earlier, it will take a lot more than Blockchain technology to fix that game but imagine if they had put the inclusion of non-player characters or trading or player vs player combat to a vote for token holders during development. It would have taken very little effort or money to do that and they would have known what their core fanbase wanted in their game.

The biggest concern game developers have at the moment is the speed of blockchain transactions. For a game to be a decentralised application, there is concern that the network won’t cope with the large amounts of transactions and data. We did see this with Cryptokitties when at its most popular moment caused a massive slowdown of transaction speeds across the whole Ethereum network. A really popular game will need to be able to rely on fast and consistent network speeds. There are a number of blockchains that are looking to provide that speed. Tron and Holo are two that come to mind.

There are plenty more great reasons why Blockchain gaming would be a wise move for some indie developers over the next year as long as the concerns over accessibility and transaction network speeds can be addressed.

As new as Blockchain gaming is there are in fact many games out there and a few that are actually fun to play. I already mentioned Blockchain Cuties, but there is a space exploration game called 0xUniverse where you build spaceships and discover planets you can buy and sell to other players.

Dragonglass is a platformer style game that allows you to mine their cryptocurrency by playing through the levels and avoiding spikes and lava and such forth.

Spells of Genesis is a mobile game, its a combination of strategy rpg and card game. Its had over 10,000 users on Android.

Beyond the Void is another game set in space with a focus on multiplayer and real-time strategy. This game is available on steam and while it’s had mixed reviews, it certainly is a good example of gaming on the blockchain.

Etherquest is a popular RPG game where players can earn Ether from playing which actually looks quite fun as you battle other players.

As you can see, there are plenty of games out there already exploring the use of blockchain technology and the sector provides enough advantages to players and developers that as the risks diminish and the speed and reliability of the networks and blockchains improve that more developers will get involved. As an indie developer perhaps now is the time to explore building your games on blockchain technology, maybe you can get ahead of the curve before every other studio and the big publishers dominate the space.

What do you guys think of gaming on the blockchain?

Are any of you developing games and want to know more about how you can use the tech? Do you think players should have a say in a games development or direction or do you prefer the way your games are now? If so let us know in the comments below. We really like to hear your thoughts on the stories we run so please get involved.

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Disclaimer: Cryptopig content is written by a team of blockchain passionate people. We are not registered as investment advisors. Don’t take the information in this post as investment advice and make sure you do your own research before investing. Cryptocurrencies are a very risky investment, never invest more money than you can afford to lose.

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I am not a video game player, but I can appreicate the talent and vision involved in every video game. Some video games have turend very controversial for the violence or all kinds of isms in them, but I guess it is up to the audience to support or reject that kind of game.
I guess it will be great for developers to take advantage of the potential of the blockchain and provide users with all kinds of alternatives.
Unfortuntelly the crypto market seems too shaky and unpredictable for future stable investments
Hopefully that will change in the near future.
The more confidence investors can have in this new market the easier will be for developer to fully get involved and change the way we see video games in the future.

very interesting post, thanks for sharing, we will see what the futuer will bring next, will be really exciting days

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