Can blockchain be the saviour of the gaming industry?

In parallel with the mobile gaming, PC and console game development is also regressing: they are marketing and selling unfinished and incomplete games, and the industry is becoming increasingly tolerant towards this. The idea is that the not yet finished, core components of the games are added later as downloadable content for additional payment. While on the other side, developers earn profit with these unfinished games, and once acquired enough money, they abandon the project, leaving the game in this incomplete state, to search for the next project. Meanwhile, because aggressive marketing is winning over quality, independent developers are getting the short end of the stick: no matter the quality of work, they get paid below the minimum.

A disruptive idea, you say? — Luckily, some have already thought of that and discovered that blockchain could provide solutions to the distress in the global gaming industry. And after the first notable blockchain-based games, such as Huntercoin, now more and more games are developed and put on the blockchain.

Game currencies (which are either the games’ own tokens or an existing token such as Ether in case of Ethereum), avatars, gameplay inputs, even entire games can be put on and secured by the blockchain. When properly executed, introducing blockchain into online games means that players can interact with each other and play the games in a manner that has never been possible before, for example, by providing possibilities for community governance through the blockchain technology. On the other side, developers can formulate new genres of games, by taking advantage of and exercising gameplay elements unique to blockchain gaming.

Most importantly, contrary to the centralization of the traditional gaming industry, blockchain games are decentralized — which could potentially make this type of gaming and game development the real solution to most of the problems mentioned above.

Before we delve into the benefits and obstacles of blockchain games, it is important to get familiar with the core concept and the terminology.

First of all, one has to know the difference between a cryptocurrency game and a blockchain game. A cryptocurrency game represents any video game that, in some capacity, incorporates crypto assets, while a blockchain game is a game in which some or all of the gameplay takes place directly on the blockchain. To live with the widely used formula: Every blockchain game is also a crypto game, however, not all crypto games are blockchain games.

Basically, in a blockchain game, gameplay inputs and activity look like transactions broadcasted by players onto the network. If 100% of these game actions exist on the blockchain, we are talking about a “true” blockchain game, where the game world runs without a centralized server, technically serverless, on the network (the blockchain) itself. These “true” blockchain games are the ones that have the potential to be the leaders of the paradigm shift in the gaming industry as a whole.

First and foremost, one of the main characteristics of blockchain gaming is that it is empowering, as it empowers players to improve their experience. The following list is some of the other main benefits players have the opportunity to enjoy through blockchain gaming.

Who likes hackers, cheaters or faulty gameplay? I am pretty sure that no one would raise their hands. Cheating competitors (or even outside of comp, cheating gamers in general), or times when the game does not run the way it is supposed to, completely ruins the experience for everyone. I personally, have gotten penalized for leaving a comp match early, when in fact what happened is that the game simply through me out — it did not matter and there was no way for me to get back the points I have lost because of that. And even though I do not believe I have met any cheaters while playing, if nothing else, everyone has at least seen videos of surprisingly good aiming — where there was no doubt that the player had a little help from his friend, the aimbot. This is where blockchain comes in: blockchain gaming enables a quality of “provably fair gameplay”. By placing a game on the blockchain, the developer shares the game logic and gameplay elements as well, and the consensus mechanism for securing the network simultaneously also secures the game.

Any and all items and elements in the game can be placed on the blockchain, and any entity, such as rare items, hard-to-find resources, characters, literally anything can exist as a crypto asset. These crypto assets are typically fungible tokens (some form of game currency) or non-fungible token (items and avatars) on a blockchain network. When these are placed on the blockchain and the items or accounts are linked to the players’ wallets, all the loot collected and currency accumulated can be sent to the wallets as achieving them. You will see the further benefits of this in the following points.

Remember when I depicted the problems in the gaming industry, and stated that it is shifting towards pay-to-win games? The good news is, blockchain games turn this upside down. Thanks to the real-world ownership mentioned above, players have the ability to sell their assets on open markets to other players for real-world profits. So, while in the pay-to-win model, the highest ranked players would need to spend a ton of money on the game, on the contrary, in the play-to-earn model that blockchain makes possible, the best, highest ranked players instead have the possibility to actually earn a ton of money. Also, imagine if you could buy your favourite players’ weapons or skins that they used during a competition — amazing, isn’t it? These items could sell for so much it opens a lot of gates, even gamers’ involvement in charity auctions, for example.

Have you ever felt the emptiness when finishing a game, or the disappointment and sadness when the developers pull the plug on a game or a community dies out, so you have no choice but to stop playing the game? A part of this feeling is there because you have to leave your beloved characters, and your whole inventory behind, find the next game and start from scratch. What if I told you that blockchain games change this too? You would think I’m lying but I’m not.

Yes, this means that you could potentially take your favourite lucky weapon and use it in another game with no trouble! (Don’t worry, it will not cause chaos: if the two games support each other, the weapon will fit just right into both of them by having designated damage points for each.) Even more exciting is that quests or events can jump across games. One can only imagine the possibilities this cross-functionality will bring to the table.

We must not forget about the other side of the community, without whom, the whole gaming industry would not exist: the developers. If blockchain gaming brings no benefits to this side of the gaming ecosystem, the new concept certainly would not be successful and popular in the long run. However, the fact is that there are a range of advantages for this side too.

A big obstacle for individual developers and small studios is that it is hard to stand out with a game, grab the attention of the audience and create a community around a game. Developing blockchain games can be an opportunity to do so, as blockchain gaming is still in its infancy. Many traditional game studios experiment with it and see potential, but someone has yet to make the breakthrough and create the first major blockchain game that captures the attention of the general gaming population. The pioneers who will get there will be well rewarded.

The industry of game development is characterized by low payout, where the associating costs such as the burden of publishing, server upkeep or player moderation can be enormous and have the potential to undermine projects that were in fact very promising to begin with. Blockchain games turn this around as well, since building games on the blockchain means that all of these costs can be outsourced to the miners or validators. Technically, there is potential for it to be a zero-cost operation to publish these games online.

The existing and potential future blockchain gaming community consists of players that have an elevated interest in their gameplay, and even heightened attention in seeking profits through such play. They are more immersed and have far more resources and investment with regards to their gaming. This can create a special, active and extremely beneficial relationship between developers and players — something that could not be done through traditional gaming.

Reading all this, it is almost too good to be true. Suddenly, here is this magic blockchain that will solve all the problems in the industry? Well, to be honest, while blockchain gaming has a lot of potential, as of now, it still has certain limitations and obstacles it needs to overcome.

One of these is lack of talent, as the blockchain gaming ecosystem is so new, it currently lacks professional gamers as well as companies that focus on developing blockchain games. While there are a few that do, it is important to see that this type of development needs professionals who understand both gaming and blockchain. This pool is very limited at the moment, but as the problems in the industry grow, and blockchain is conquering more and more areas, this is most likely going to change.

After analysing the benefits and the state of blockchain gaming as of today, I dare to state that this phenomenon has the potential to transform the whole industry. This intersection of blockchain technology and gaming is already promising, and it just keeps developing and more and more ambitious projects are in the pipeline. The possibilities are endless, so it will depend on the developers and the gaming community how far they will take this and what amazing solutions and games they come up with. As the obstacles are getting demolished, blockchain games may turn the current state of gaming upside down.

What legal implications, such as potential gambling issues, intellectual property, patent, liability or any other issues could arise around blockchain gaming is a subject of a next article, but I can promise you it will bring up some interesting questions.

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