CryptoRome — Breaking Down the Blockchain Gaming Barriers
Blockchain based gaming has come a long way in the past six months.
CryptoKitties took the blockchain world by storm back in November, 2017. It was the first blockchain game to catch mass adoption, and emerged as one of the top blockchain apps of 2017. This game was different because it included a “cute” digital asset that people could own, as well as a simple, understandable game mechanic. The digital asset represented a unique kitty with its own DNA signature. People could breed their kitty to create new kitties, in hopes that the offspring would bare rare, valuable traits. These new kitties could be put up for sale (some selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars) or studded out for real ETH, as well.
CryptoKitties proved that digital collectibles were a real thing, and that people could indeed place high values on scarce, digital assets. However, since CryptoKitties, many developers looked to capitalize quickly with simple pyramid-style and hot potato games. In these games, once people bought an asset, they usually didn’t have a choice in whether or not they kept the asset. Anyone else who offered a set premium price higher than the original purchase price took the asset away from the owner. This sounded bad for the owner, but in actuality, this is what the original owner was hoping for, since they made a profit and the asset didn’t really “do” anything in the game. As the name suggests, someone was always left at the top holding the bag.
This summer though, we are finally going to see a giant leap in blockchain gameplay enabled by new ways in how digital assets are utilized. Ownership of assets by the game player (and not the centralized game company) will be the trend. We will see games offer character and asset improvements (leveling up) through game play as a basic feature. We will see asset interaction. And as a killer feature, we will see assets improved and developed across multiple games.
CryptoRome and The Second Generation of Blockchain Gaming
In the case of CryptoRome, the digital asset is land in Italia. These assets can be upgraded, built upon, and modified. The assets will first be utilized in the game “Battle for Europe,” where landowners will be able to wage a game of battle and strategy to attain resources, land, and ultimately title. We are seeing a shift to actual games utilizing digital assets that will be usable in multiple games in the future and all these games may not come from the same software publisher. CryptoRome does not only include its own assets, but it will incorporate other digital assets from other blockchain game publishers (announcements are coming soon!).
Imagine upgrading your CryptoRome troops with swords, arrows, and armor from other games. Or building a gladiator arena on your land plot in CryptoRome, advertising it, charging admission, and having people bring in their gladiators from CryptoRome (or any other game) to battle in it!
So what keeps the masses from buying into the blockchain gaming?
We believe there are a number of factors inhibiting the masses from taking the plunge and getting involved in blockchain gaming, which utilize digital assets that belong to them beyond the life of the original game.
Blockchain education — Believe it or not, a majority of people still do not have a grasp on how blockchain and gaming fit together. When speaking to a friend from Ubisoft recently to discuss our small development outfit, he was still trying to grasp why blockchain should be important to his organization. We explained some of the main aspects:
- You actually own your in-game assets that you purchase. The centralized game company does not own them (as opposed to almost every other game prior to now).
- You can upgrade the in-game assets, take them between games, and build new games around them. This is a powerful concept. In a centralized world, your character lives on the servers of a single game maker and is not open for access and development. You cannot (easily) sell your assets to someone else when you are done playing the centralized game.
Wallets and payment — Most of us in the blockchain space, especially blockchain developers, are familiar with Crypto wallets and how to utilize them as well as deal with Metamask. This is not the case for the everyday people out there.
The majority of our friends and siblings who love video games and board games also love the idea of character and asset development where they get to keep the item, character, or land beyond the original game. However, the biggest barrier for them is understanding cryptocurrency and the wallets. In most cases, they do not want to take the time to teach themselves or have someone else teach them how it works.
The ability to participate in this movement and facilitate easier payment systems and management of these assets is key to gaining broader adoption.
With CryptoRome, we believe the user should not have to know they are playing a blockchain-based game. We have gone through a number of complicated steps to provide an experience closer to what the masses expect and can understand. We are paving the way and providing a template for others in the industry to bring blockchain-based gaming to a much broader audience.
The first big step we took in this direction was to accept credit cards with standard authentication. We built in conversion mechanisms on the backend for converting to cryptocurrencies and holding the digital assets in a custodial wallet for our customers. We are taking the Coinbase model of trying to make it as easy as possible to be a part of CryptoRome.
Freemium Models — Everyone wants to be able to get in on the fun and try it out for free. The problem for blockchain games (especially ones using Ethereum) is that it costs money to deploy and send digital assets to people. The fees are usually paid by the game players, since they are the owners of the digital assets. These blockchain transaction costs are necessary to incentivize the running of and decentralization of the network. We get it, but we also feel strongly that in order to bring broader masses to the space, there needs to be a free tier. This free tier also needs to be unlimited in nature to continually facilitate the growth of the games’ overall network.
In this school of thought, while we are capping the land in CryptoRome at the end of our land sale for villages, towns, and cities, we will always offer a free tier for access to the game and its resource markets in the form of plots. While these plots are the base level of land asset for the game, they do provide an opportunity for everyone to own a digital asset that is a part of CryptoRome. With access, players can participate in all the games and mini-games that utilize these assets (“Battle for Europe” is the first game that will do so).
You can get a free CryptoRome plot today with no purchase or obligation to purchase by visiting our website: www.cryptorome.io. Our land sale starts on 17, May, 2018, and will run until 16, June, 2018. We have incorporated many of the ideas above into the roll out of CryptoRome. Standard user accounts and credit card options are available.
Our Links:
CryptoRome Website: https://cryptorome.io
GigLabs Website: https://giglabs.io
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CryptoRome
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CryptoRome/
Medium: https://medium.com/cryptorome
Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/RJBRkTx
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/HO5pEg4X7AFMoeXYbE-4hg
Github: https://github.com/GigLabs/CryptoRome-LandSale
Land Sale Smart Contract: https://etherscan.io/address/0x2c1e693ccc537c8c98c73fac0262cd7e18a3ad60
