Blockchain and Gaming - a Blockbuster Combination
After a successful run in the finance world, blockchain is set to revolutionize the economy of online video games. To bring this to pass the developers of the games are using it to plug the biggest holes that could sink the online gaming ship - poor security and lack of interoperability.
Problems Facing the Online Games Industry:
Starting with the security concern, video game services being hacked is very much a reality. The PlayStation Network and Xbox live was infiltrated by the hacker group Phantom squad. These incidents are worth noticing because both the companies in questions are enormous and worth millions of dollars but seemingly did not spend enough on security. The cyber assaults that disabled PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox gaming consoles may have been done by hackers for laughs, but what if the motive was something sinister? The other question is are online gaming platforms like these steadily becoming obsolete and is there a solution on the blockchain.
The above are systemic issues of having a centralized server run an online game. The other issue, of course, is “lagging” which can make or break your game. To understand this better, consider being engrossed in a combat game. You are about to set up a sniper shot on your opponent but your game lags and your opponent escapes the attack, and, on the contrary, maybe it is you who ends up dead. There are primarily two types of online games - the first one is multiplayer online arena, also known as ARTS (Action Real Time Strategy Game) genre popularized in the first part of the 21st century. An example of this is League of Legends. In this format, you play in one given virtual arena against other teams. The Other type of multiplayer game is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. These are also very popular, and good examples of this would be Fortnite. This is different from the previous category in the sense that players go out individually to fight against opponents. The point is there are hundreds of thousands of players all over the world who are connected to the game through a single server, and this can create a bottleneck which can lead to lag.
Blockchain could Improve the Gaming Experience:
Not surprisingly, decentralizing video game servers is the obvious remedy to this problem. So what is an example of a project that is doing that? Playkey is one, and it is a project that is decentralizing the gaming network by using cloud computing. There are 2.2 billion gamers in the world, 109 billion dollar gaming industry volume, but 81% of gamers can’t play new PC games due to the lack of easy access. The solution they have come up with is that gamers can launch a Playkey application, then the PC transmits commands to Playkey cloud server, and then games are launched on Nvidia powered GPU server. Then, the game is streamed in full HD and 60 FPS to the PC or Mac.
If you talk about a more general decentralized cloud computing platform that could be a platform for gaming as well, you have projects like Golem and the blockchain gaming platform by HashCash Consultants. These cover more features of online gaming. The gaming platform by HashCash Consultants takes monetizing video games a step further by providing a cryptocurrency exchange platforms. MobileGo is one that is looking to take advantage of eSports by making competitive eSports more accessible. Digital tokens that can facilitate peer to peer matchplay and decentralized tournaments is its end goal. Another potential aspect of eSports that blockchain streamlines is betting and Unikrn is taking the lead in this with its token created for this specific use.
The most exciting part of blockchain in gaming is video games built on blockchain. Take for instance World of Ether, a game developed on Ethereum platform. A feature common to a majority of blockchain games is the early sales of gaming tokens and in-game items, similar to an ICO. What takes the cake is that a game like this does not require any gaming console, and users can engage in a game in real time directly on the internet. As the complexity of the games increase, one can find games such as Magic Academy, and War of Crypto (a multiplayer fantasy game powered by Enjin Coin).
Way Forward for Blockchain in Online Gaming:
Blockchain has just begun to make ingress into the gaming industry, and it has already become a buzz word in the video game circle. It has presented an opportunity to enhance the value of online gaming not only for the developers but for the consumers of the games as well. Incentives, increased player immersions, secure payment portals, and interoperability of video games items, are steadily inching toward becoming an integral part of gaming, and these can be said to be just the tip of the iceberg of the promise of blockchain.
