How will blockchain fit into games?
How are developers answering what blockchain’s place is in games? How will that evolve? Will blockchain have a place in games or be a passing fad?
Just FYI, I’m going to be referencing a lot of games here without explaining them. If you’re not familiar, then I assume you’ll look them up if you want to know more. I’d rather get through more content rather than explaining each game.
The Past Year
Let’s take a quick look at the past year to see how things have evolved. There were a few things before Cryptokitties, but essentially Cryptokitties was the Big Bang. It started off a chain of breeder clones amidst pyramid schemes like PoWH3D. The initial thought here was that players were looking to profit off these games. Cryptokitties was less of a game and more of an interesting asset generator with a marketplace.
For the first time in gaming history, developers were able to easily reward players with monetary rewards or cryptocurrency. This changed player motivation and became the single biggest change for what blockchain brought to gaming.
Games for investment or fun?
Blockchain games seemed to be diverging between idle/pyramid games that rewarded players for properly investing/inviting and games with more gameplay. This next generation added battling to the breeder category like Etheremon and Fishbank. The pyramid scheme games were still going strong especially with FOMO3D taking the blockchain world by storm. Crypto-enthusiasts were worked into a frenzy and some lucky soul eventually won 10,000 ETH. To me, this only accentuated the two directions things were going.
At this point, games were still entirely on-chain and we were starting to reach the limits. With every action costing money and time, developers took the leap to a hybrid on/off-chain approach. That brings us up to present day…
Off-Chain “Real” Games with On-Chain Assets
We are just starting to see the new breed of “real” games using the blockchain. Most of them are still in development. A few to note are CryptoAssault (that’s us!), War Riders, Crypto Space Commander, Gods Unchained, War of Crypto, Hash Rush and Project Genesis. We’re seeing everything from shooters to strategy games. You get to run, shoot, and battle without having to wait and pay every time you press a key.
These hybrid games are essentially using decentralized assets in a centralized game. The military units, cars, or cards that the players own and use in these games are assets that live on the blockchain. They can be bought and sold between players without the developer’s intervention. When it comes to playing the game though, that lives on a centralized set of servers under the developer’s control.
Side chains may also be a viable option to keep games entirely on-chain while greatly reducing transaction times and fees. It remains to be seen how this does.
How will blockchain fit into games?
In retrospect, we can see that mobile brought the ability to always have a game in your pocket. This led to short, asynchronous play sessions games that thrived on appointment mechanics. Most blockchain games on the horizon still motivate the player to profit with cryptocurrency. Whether the promise of appreciating assets or winning contests, this continues to be the focus.
How will blockchain evolve in games? Will it just become the trading platform for Fortnite? Will gambling become the dominant use case? What I think is that attaching real-world value to items in-game will indelibly change game design forever. We know that the blockchain is a great platform for virtual goods but what happens to game design when those goods have a real-world value and are easily tradable? Undoubtedly we’ll see something new and I’m excited to play something that we’ve never played before.
What I’m working on…
My team and I are hard at work on CryptoAssault, a blockchain game, that we think brings something new to the Strategy MMO genre. Join us on Discord!
