The Road to Integration for a Gaming Cryptocurrency
Even at a cursory glance, Enjin’s roadmap looks ambitious.
Whilst the phrase “looks can be deceiving” usually rings true in the crypto world, with Enjin’s roadmap there is no illusion: it looks ambitious because it is ambitious.
Here’s a quick summary of what’s in store over the coming months.
By the end of Q4 2017, the Enjin Smart Wallet will be launched, and the Core Smart Contracts, Platform API, Minecraft plugin and Java SDK will be in alpha testing.
But that’s just the start.
By the end of Q2 2018, Enjin is planning to deliver six additional SDKs, two game plugins (Unturned and ARK Survival Evolved) and a host of user-focused wallet updates, store modules, trading systems, and forum integrations.
On top of this, they recently announced that they will also be supporting an Enjin module for Godot, an open-source game engine licensed by MIT.
That’s seven SDKs, three game plugins, an API and the Godot module—all planned for delivery in just eight months.
Blockchain Game Development Tools
Clearly, the roadmap is geared towards quickly delivering tools for third-party developers. This strategy puts Enjin on a different trajectory than its main competitors, who are predominantly focused on spreading brand awareness among crypto-investors by influencing (sometimes not-so-ethically) a single metric — market cap.
The intent of Enjin’s developer-centric approach seems clear: if they can maintain velocity, and deliver on their roadmap, then in just two-thirds of a year they will have achieved what no other gaming-related coin has managed, or even attempted to do so far: developer saturation.
Why is striving for developer saturation a better strategy than striving for brand recognition among crypto-investors? This question can be answered with two simple statistics:
and
The current number of unique video game players worldwide is estimated to be over 2.5 billion.
These numbers tell us that even if every owner of a cryptocurrency wallet was also a video game player then that would still mean less than 1 in 500 gamers is crypto-savvy.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Enjin and its competitors are striving to develop gaming cryptocurrencies…
…the success of which will be reliant on widespread gamer adoption
…but less than 0.2% of their target audience have ever held a cryptocurrency.
It’s a daunting thought, and it means that any company wanting to introduce cryptocurrency into the gaming market has to fight a battle on two fronts.
Game of Coins
First, they have to convince the vast majority of non-crypto-savvy gamers that a blockchain solution is legitimate, simple to use and is better than the existing system.
This is because gamers already understand and trust fiat currency and they already understand and trust the existing methods for in-game payments.
If a crypto system doesn’t offer the gamer something more than the current fiat-based system, then what’s the point of changing?
Thankfully, there is already a number of great articles explaining just how significantly the blockchain will revolutionize gaming.
Suffice to say, integrated blockchains offer much more than just a currency replacement.
The second big challenge faced by crypto companies is that they need to convince the game developers that integrating their particular coin or token is worth the developer’s time, expense and effort.
After all, every line of code costs money and developers have become highly attuned to avoiding unnecessary complexity in their systems.
If a payment system already exists, and that system can be easily integrated into the developer’s project, then that payment system becomes the logical choice.
Conversely, this also means that few developers are willing to gamble on an unproven blockchain solution that might one-day be the next big thing.
That’s two very big obstacles, yet Enjin’s roadmap cleverly addresses both of them with a simple strategy.
To explain how Enjin’s simple plan can solve a complex problem, we’ve first got to look at one more statistic:
The statistic highlights what successful developers (and enthusiastic gamers) have known for years, and also holds the key to establishing gamer trust in a cryptocurrency: gamers are willing to spend a lot of money on in-game purchases — as long as they trust the game and/or the game’s developer.
This is because the gamer’s trust of a game and/or game developer is implicitly passed on to the various components of that game, including the in-game shopping cart.
This is obvious — if you think about it.
When users of a game like Clash of Clans choose to buy in-game gems, they aren’t considering who the actual transaction is being managed by. They don’t need to think about it because they trust the developers to do the right thing.
They know that a successful company would not compromise their product, or risk the trust and loyalty of their customers, by using an inferior payment system.
A Quick Recap
Let’s just take a moment to review the two sides to this dilemma:
- For in-game cryptocurrency to be widely adopted, it needs to be trusted by the gaming community… but less than 0.2% of the gaming community even understand what cryptocurrency is.
- Gamers who trust the game developers will spend a lot of money on in-game purchases, regardless of the platform — but most game developers won’t want to risk their brand by using an unfamiliar and unproven in-game blockchain solution.
It seems like the perfect Catch-22: gamers don’t understand or trust cryptocurrency because it isn’t being used by well-known game developers — and well-known game developers won’t deploy an unproven crypto-based purchasing system because they fear their gamers won’t understand it.
The only way any company developing a cryptocurrency can break through this situation is if they have enough “skin in the game” to prove in a real-world environment that their system works, and to demonstrate that even users who aren’t crypto-literate (remember, that’s over 99.8% of the gaming community!) are willing to embrace the benefits of this new technology.
Enjin, the company behind Enjin Coin
Enjin.com is an all-in-one online community for gamers.
It hosts websites, guild pages, Minecraft game servers, forums and much more. It currently has over 20 million registered users across more than 250,000 gaming communities.
Enjin also has custom deep-game integration modules for the most popular games they host, such as Minecraft, Unturned and ARK: Survival Evolved.
The gaming communities are very active, and even before the upcoming introduction of Enjin Coin, the site already processes millions of dollars (USD) of virtual goods each month.
All of this puts Enjin in the prime position to test and prove their new virtual goods blockchain on a significant scale and in a real-world environment.
“If you build it, they will come.”
That’s an often-used misquote from the movie Field of Dreams but the underlying sentiment still rings true. There is a genuine reason why software developers start off with a small proof-of-concept or minimum-viable-product.
It’s really hard to sell an idea to a consumer using words alone, especially when that idea challenges the consumer’s existing beliefs.
Enjin is no different in this respect.
As the company behind Enjin Coin, Enjin is saying to the world: “we think there is a better, blockchain-powered way, that enables both gamers and game developers to get more out of their virtual goods”.
The big developers are interested, sure, but at the same time they’re also cautious. They’re not going to throw out their existing funding model unless evidence exists to support the case for change.
When Enjin rolls out the Minecraft plugin to their Enjin community early in 2018, they are delivering their proof-of-concept.
There is already great excitement around the huge potential for managing digital assets via the blockchain (thanks CryptoKitties!) and there is growing anticipation for Enjin’s Minecraft plugin. Without a doubt, game studios around the world will be watching on and evaluating how successful this new concept is.
Therein lies the beauty of the Enjin roadmap.
Three components delivered in the coming weeks will work together to demonstrate in a very public way exactly how the blockchain will begin to revolutionize the gaming industry.
The Smart Contract and Enjin Wallet lay the foundation for the creation and storage of digital assets, and the Minecraft plugin delivers a real-world use-case through one of the most popular games on the planet — all rolled out to a user-base of over 20 million gamers who trust the Enjin brand.
Did you hear that noise?
That was the sound of a Catch-22 being broken.
A successful demonstration should spur game development studios to find innovative new ways of using the blockchain to create added value for their in-game digital assets, and this is where the final piece of the Enjin Roadmap comes into play.
Blockchain Game Development SDKs
Remember those seven SDKs that I mentioned right at the start?
SDKs are Software Development Kits, and in this case they represent custom-built Enjin modules that will plug into seven of the world’s most popular game development platforms. An SDK makes it easier for a game developer to incorporate Enjin because it allows the new blockchain components to work as naturally as possible with the rest of the game design.
Here are those seven SDKs again, this time with some context around how developers use them:
- Java SDK: Java is the language used for the original Minecraft game, so the Java SDK is a natural extension of the Minecraft plugin. Java continues to be popular with cross-platform mobile game developers and many of the popular mobile games (e.g. Angry Birds and Temple Run) were developed in Java.
- C# SDK: C# is one of the most popular game development languages in the world. It was actually developed by Microsoft because Java wouldn’t let Microsoft make changes to the Java language. C# is also the underlying language behind the Unity game engine.
- Unity SDK: Around one third of the top desktop games, and over a third of the top 1000 free mobile games are made using the Unity engine. Unity is also used in the emerging VR gaming sector, with 90% of all Samsung Gear and 53% of all Oculus Rift VR games developed using Unity.
- Unreal SDK: The Unreal development kit is another popular game development suite. Unreal can be used to produce desktop or mobile games and it is also proving itself to be a solid contender in the VR development space as well. The zero-upfront pricing structure makes it popular with indie developers, who are likely to be amongst the first to integrate blockchain technology into their games.
- iOS Swift SDK & Android SDK: Over $28.2b (USD) was spent on mobile gaming in 2017, and this figure is increasing by about 6% per year. The release of the iOS Swift and Android SDKs will allow direct integration of blockchain in native Apple and Android apps, enabling developers to create added value for virtual goods in the lucrative mobile gaming market.
- PHP SDK: PHP is the technology behind much of the internet. It was designed solely to serve up web pages and is what runs popular sites like Facebook, Wikipedia and Wordpress. It also powers a lot of forums and other community elements that are ripe for gamification using Enjin Coin.
- Godot Engine: Godot is an open-source game engine powerhouse. It is rapidly gaining in popularity (over 160,000 developers worldwide) and is used to build games for the PC, console, mobile and web platforms.
Remember this line from earlier? If a payment system already exists, and that system can be easily integrated into the developer’s project, then that payment system becomes the logical choice. The seven SDKs being developed by Enjin will enable easy integration of the growing Enjin Coin economy directly into a developer’s project.
Conclusion
The Enjin roadmap is ambitious, seeking to provide SDKs for a high proportion of the game developer community by the end of Q2 2018.
By leveraging their massive online community of gamers, and by simultaneously providing the world’s game-development communities with the tools they need for easy integration, Enjin has found a way to accelerate the adoption of this exciting new technology.
As the SDK’s roll out, forward-looking developers will drive the inclusion of Enjin in new games, enhancing gamer trust and understanding of cryptocurrency through a whole new world of uniquely traceable, transferrable and genuinely valuable digital assets.
It’s a roadmap that is as exciting as it is ambitious.
Thank you for reading.
— Andrew Young, Enjin Coin Investor
