Blockchain: The Protector of Gamers’ Digital Property Rights
By Gina Duncan
So you’re a gamer, right? Video gamers’ digital assets are essential components in the gaming experience. You’ve created your avatar, loaded your arsenal, and chosen allies. As you are playing you acquire in-game assets, based on the exchange of real-world money. Or, you’ve earned these digital assets during hours of play with each mission, or level completed. But what happens the next time you sign onto the game, ready to join your team, and your avatar is gone? What do you do if another player has successfully hacked in and stolen your digital identity? Or what if the video gaming company has erased you? It’s a gamer’s worst nightmare. Everything you purchased, the missions completed, the levels you have achieved, all your digital assets, gone in a heartbeat. Here’s some vital information for understanding how blockchain might save you many (virtual) lives.
There are 2.3 billion video gamers like you in the world today. You thought you owned all your digital assets in a video game, but to what extent are they really yours? In the first quarter of 2019, over $1.2 billion USD in cryptocurrency has been stolen. It’s very clear in property ownership that if the company from whom you purchased physical items (your car, your laptop your house) were to fold, you would still own your assets. That has not been the case in the video gaming world — at least, not before blockchain.
Blockchain and non-fungible tokens, or NFT’s, have literally changed the game. NFT’s are blockchain-based, tradable digital assets that are owned by gamers. So all those weapons, arsenals, and avatar characteristics remain your property, your tradable digital assets, your NFT’s.
Those NFT’s you own can’t be reproduced or taken away. That’s why major players in the gaming industry are innovating in blockchain. Gaming giant Ubisoft is considering adding blockchain applications to its platform. Planetarium, a South Korean startup, plans to launch games on its own blockchain to help its gamers be creative with their digital property ownership. As a gamer, you should know your NFT options.
The Protector of Gamers’ Digital Property Rights
In the eyes of the law, there are three types of property: real, personal, and intellectual. Ownership of fixed property like land or a house is real property. Personal property is ownership of items such as your car, television, or jewelry. These are consumer goods. Intellectual property is the ownership of an intangible creation of the mind, like a song you wrote, a film you produced, or a literary work. The laws are clear on how to handle ownership and theft of these three types of property.
The legislation is not clear when it comes to your intangible digital property rights. The laws are written to favour the rights of the developer’s intellectual property, over your intangible ones, in what’s called the End User License Agreement or EULA. Did you know that EULA is a contractual relationship that you, the gamer, enters with the copyright holder of the video game every time you commence play? Essentially, it means video gamers are given the right to play the game, and nothing else. The courts haven’t decided how to police your ownership of intellectual property that doesn’t exist in the real world.
Thankfully for the gamer, game developers, especially independent ones, want their players to keep playing. So they are getting behind the addition of blockchain applications to their video games, giving gamers control of their digital property. Developers are gamers too, and they know it’s all about the player experience.
So, just how do you take control of your gaming rights with blockchain?
Blockchain allows for a separate, secure, decentralised record of ownership of avatars, and in-game assets — virtually anything of value in a game. It allows the gamer to have complete control with 100% ownership of their digital property, their NFT’s.
Blockchain benefits include:
- Allows gamers who own that in-game asset to exchange or sell ownership. If a player exchange or sells an in-game asset to another player, the transaction is recorded on a blockchain. The blockchain recognises the owner and ensures every transaction is legitimate, that it can only be sold by a true owner.
- Increases the value of these digital assets, creating a virtual digital asset marketplace.
- Blockchain generates a secure record of ownership that cannot be duplicated and cannot be tampered with. In doing this it eliminates the trade in counterfeit digital assets.
- Digital assets can be combined to get another asset or create a new experience in a game.
New Developments in Blockchain
The video gaming industry earned $134.9 billion USD in 2018. It generated more than the music and movie industries combined, making it the most lucrative industry in the entertainment world. The largest segment of that revenue, 47%, is being generated from mobile gaming applications, and that figure is steadily rising each year. Console gaming alone was up 15.2% from the previous year, with all major sectors generating an increase in revenue. Developers want to expand their platforms to leverage these trends.
Gaming Giant Ubisoft and Startup Planetarium are Considering Blockchain Applications
Crypto gaming startups and existing developers are integrating into this space, with an eye on improving the security of blockchain to control their independent developer rights. More importantly, they want to revolutionise the gaming industry by supporting, and creating for the gamer, digital property rights.
The fourth-largest, publicly-traded, video game company — French video giant, Ubisoft — is in the advanced stages of introducing blockchain applications to their games. French newspaper Les Echos writes that Ubisoft is making these advancements as a strategy to gain a stronger competitive edge in the gaming industry.
Ubisoft, known for Assassin’s Creed and Just Dance, was inspired by Epic Games, the creators of Fortnite. While Fortnite is free, Epic Games has had immense success with player in-game asset purchases. Ubisoft is planning a similarly-monetised digital property application. However, unlike Epic Games, and in an effort to transform the player’s personal gaming experience, Ubisoft will use blockchain to monetise in-game purchases, and preserve the digital property rights for the users of their games.
It has not been reported whether Ubisoft plans to monetise in-game assets for an existing video, or a brand-new one. It depends on whether the French legislature adopts a proposed crypto bill, which is awaiting regulatory approval.
Similar plans are underway in South Korea with blockchain gaming startup Planetarium. For a new version of its Nine Chronicles game, Planetarium is planning to store its storyboards and data on its own open-source blockchain platform, Libplanet.
Planetarium supports games being made to run on Libplanet in the hope that this will give the user the creativity to produce their own game versions. They support the creation of video games where decisions are based on the needs of the individual game, not the entire platform. Planetarium looked at Warcraft II and League of Legends as halcyon examples, but plan to improve the experience for the user by inspiring creativity. Planetarium seeks to be a decentralised platform where games can run forever.
Blockchain technology continues to transform the experience of video gamers. As legislation begins to better define the intangible property rights in NFT’s, more video game developers in this billion-dollar industry will make advancements onto this platform. As a gamer, you will want to keep up with the latest developments and understand how they benefit your game. Let other gamers’ research and reviews help you have the best gaming experience with blockchain.
Revain’s Platform: Other Gamers Are Your Best Allies
As a gamer, whether in the game or out, other players are your best allies. Revain’s platform offers you the opportunity to share information, ideas, and reviews with other gamers. Revain gives you unique developer-to-consumer access to provide insight into the growth and development of blockchain-based gaming products.
Revain has made recent developments to its platform, adding a notification centre that enhances functionality, making it easier for you to keep track of comments, replies, and likes. The centre can be accessed by clicking a bell icon at the top right of your screen, making sure that you don’t miss out on any communications received. We’ve got your back. Stay on top, and play-to-win with Revain!
