Evolution of a Blockchain Gaming Multiverse
Welcome to Multiverse Mondays (Part 2 of 5). In this series, we reveal the world’s first multiverse assets, talk about blockchain technology that powers them, and provide insight into what’s happening behind the scenes.
“New ideas pass through three periods:
1) It can’t be done.
2) It probably can be done, but it’s not worth doing.
3) I knew it was a good idea all along!”— Arthur C. Clarke
I believe that every great invention started with a version of a single question:
“How do I solve this problem?”
We had to find a way to stay warm and scare predators away, so we learned how to use fire. We needed to figure out a way to immortalize information— and we invented writing, more than once. Unfolding the secret of electricity and learning to use it to power our machines was a tricky one, solved by countless philosophers, scientists, and engineers spanning over several millennia.
These inventions revolutionized the world on their own — but their emergent features are what really benefited humanity as a whole.
Besides enabling us to move from tropical and subtropical regions and conquer places with colder climates, the fact that we used fire to cook food literally made us smarter.
Forty thousand years of writing down numbers were followed by the true writing of language, which dragged us, kicking and screaming, from the lost pages of prehistory into the dawn of first civilizations. Written words (not numbers) enabled us to pass our knowledge to future generations, resulting in a snowball effect that improved our technology, bit by bit, over the centuries.
Electrical power is what fueled the Second Industrial Revolution, ushered in a new era of globalization and enabled the modern world — everything from light bulbs, refrigerators and TVs to computers, maglev trains, and robots.
The invention of ENJ also started with a question about a problem:
“How to make games fair for both game developers and gamers?”
Here’s the problem with the gaming industry as a whole: Competition has grown fierce over the years, and the costs of development have risen dramatically— forcing developers to employ more and more aggressive monetization methods at the expense of the gamers.
This problem is extremely hard to solve, and it threatened to taint the art form our company has deeply cared for, for almost a decade.
We saw deficiencies in the system, and we decided we need to fix them.
Our solution came in the form of a usable, scalable, secure blockchain gaming ecosystem built for mainstream games — with true ownership of digital assets at its very core.
Done. Solved. If you truly own your gaming assets and can freely trade them or melt them back into ENJ, then even the most predatory monetization methods are inherently fair. If gamers can truly own their items, then they are more likely to purchase them — increasing the developer’s revenue, even if they choose not to implement blockchain-powered trading fees.
True ownership, the most basic feature of our platform, is enough on its own.
Everybody wins.
While true ownership is at the core of what ENJ is, it quickly became apparent that the emergent properties of our platform can not only fix the problems faced by both gamers and developers — but they can also result in groundbreaking game mechanics.
What if you can use your shield in more than one game…
It’s a simple enough idea, really—and impossible to accomplish without blockchain technology.
Don’t get me wrong, eliminating gray market trading, getting rid of botters, hackers & scammers, regulating in-game economies, user base growth, and player-driven value creation are bloody freaking amazing features that immensely benefit both gamers and game developers…
…but the very concept of a Gaming Multiverse is what is truly EPIC.
Three Stages of the Gaming Multiverse
I’ve tried to glance into the future of ENJ before, more than once —and the things I tried to predict ended up happening.
Still, take my words with a grain of salt, as we’re sailing into uncharted waters here.
I. Kickstarting the Multiverse
We “kickstarted” the first gaming multiverse, ever. We’re the ones that minted the items, got our Early Adopters on board, and handled the initial promotion.
The wave of media attention that the Multiverse caused reached mainstream publications such as VentureBeat and SyFy.
Trust me when I say this — coordinating the creation of the first gaming multiverse ever is not an easy task. Both the lore and the art have to make sense for every game and can’t limit the creative possibilities of game developers.
Fortunately, the early adopters of our platform were super-helpful, and all of them jumped on board—providing us with valuable feedback in regards to the multiverse items.
This first phase of the multiverse will end — sooner-or-later.
II. Growth
There’s a possibility parallel gaming universes could pop up into existence organically.
A group of lone-wolf developers using the ENJ platform might decide to connect their games, or a couple of studios could choose to collaborate on interlocking titles, completely independent of the first multiverse.
Keeping a multiverse item in your Enjin Wallet is just too strong of a value proposition…
Too legendary of a feature not to offer to gamers.
Of course, I could be absolutely wrong — new games could choose to simply plug into the current multiverse, taking advantage of the pre-existing audience, art, and lore, for user acquisition reasons, awesomeness, or other reasons.
It doesn’t matter what or how it happens—not really. The end result will still be the same, in my honest opinion.
III. Worlds Beyond Worlds
We’re talking about the future now.
Years, not months.
Sooner or later, the number of developers utilizing our technology to build gaming multiverses will skyrocket. It will become the norm, fueled by user demand.
We might see several competing gaming multiverses — and, likely, witnessing them merging into a single one.
Or the first multiverse ever could grow to epic proportions, encompassing all of virtual timespace — ultimately being refined into a decentralized OASIS.
Countless games infused with hundreds of millions of ENJ, and forged into existence with multiple Enjin Blockchain SDKs, existing on PC, console, mobile, VR, and AR — all part of the same, continuous gaming experience.
Worlds beyond worlds, where gamers can venture from digital reality to a digital reality and carry all their gaming assets with them, where developers can create questlines that spawn multiple games, where gamers themselves can mint multiverse items.
Where player-driven value creation combined with trading fees obliterates any other monetization model and further empowers the creative flame that burns in every game developer’s heart.
Ultimately, once VR becomes as common as smartphones are today, we’ll marvel at an ENJ-powered VRMMO multiverse, safe from the single-point-of-failure that almost destroyed the OASIS: centralization.
That’s the point of this little venture that is ENJ, folks — making sure that no one can steal your gaming stuff.
You truly own it.
Almost forgot — here’s some epic #MultiverseMondays items.
Shadowsong
Made of Fudrang wood and adorned with an amethystine gem infused with a soul of a dragon, Shadowsong can be a terrifying weapon in the hands of a skilled spellcaster.
It is said that the Archmage-General Elerius used a Shadowsong to cause a double eclipse that blinded the enemy army, while granting nightvision to the legions of this legendary conqueror. Slaughter ensued and blood painted the valley as the light of the binary stars became blocked by twin moons.
Victory was won with magic.
Shadowsong can be a formidable tool even in the hands of inexperienced sorcerers, enabling them to cause both benevolent wonder and wonderful, savage horror.
Stormwall
Stormwall shields.
Not many are left, these days—most were destroyed in a series of devastating civil wars that plagued and ultimately fractured the Sovereignty of Hyperion-Helix, the first multiverse-spanning empire that dominated hundreds of worlds, spanning dozens of realms.
Initially used by the Sentries, an elite military force sworn to protect the Empire to their last breath, Stormwall shields are now scattered through the multiverse — many are hidden under torched, ancient ruins of broken worlds, some are sold at incredible prices at heavily guarded antique shops, and only a handful are in possession of those rich — or brave enough to acquire them.
