Blockchain gaming from a traditional gamer perspective

Advisor’s Voice

Published in

Spores Network

8 min readJul 5, 2021

This week, we bring to you the sharing of our advisor Matt Orlich — the expert in game publishing and development experience. Founder of three software development and services companies. Titles Worked On: FIFA (2019), HoloBall AR (2018), Take 7 Music (2017), and many.

People in the crypto space like to talk about being OG, with most self-introductions starting with how early they became crypto truthers, therefore not being a loathsome bandwagoner.

Unfortunately, I cannot lay such claims when it comes to crypto, but when it comes to the gaming space I am definitely OG. Having started my career in the video game industry way back in the mid ’90s, when inclusion was largely predicated on having a love of D&D (I.e. being a nerd), along with being enough of a rebel to believe you could make a career out of what at the time was largely considered a frivolous activity. Ignoring conventional thinking and diving headfirst led me to a career in the incredibly fast-growing and awesome game industry. This same headfirst tendency led me to move to Asia where I’ve lived some incredible years both personally and professionally. And now I am following these instincts again as I dive into the crypto universe.

What motivates me to want to be a part of this movement is the undeniable utility and direct application of NFTs to games, which is clearly the way forward in attaching the value gamers deserve for their time and efforts in supporting and building up game communities. On a more emotional level what drives me to want to see this universe expand and eventually take over is the core tenant of decentralization. In this world of godlike power-wielding self-serving governments and megacorps, crypto guys are like the Rebels fighting against the Imperial Alliance, and what could be cooler than that?

Anyway, enough about me, let’s get into something you may actually be useful for you to know, some of the basics of blockchain games and how we traditional gamers can get our heads around them.

Starting with the assumption that blockchain games are new to you…

Firstly and foremost, crypto is all about skyrocketing token prices, so that’s really the game we are playing here. Which tokens to get, where to buy them, how to transfer them, etc is where it all gets kind of complicated. This is the first hurdle when trying to get into blockchain gaming. I’ll share some of my experiences and frustrations with this, but it may be very different for you. For one thing, I am a US Citizen living in Asia, so I am always running into regional issues when it comes to opening accounts or moving money around. I keep setting up different accounts on exchanges only to have it fail when I get to the point of using my debit card to try and buy coins. The only one I’ve been able to get working so far is Coinbase, which has a limited set of tokens available, WAX being a notable exclusion.

As for which games (and therefore the blockchain ecosystems in which they reside) to invest your time and money in, this article is in effect a play by play of me trying to figure that out for myself…with the hope that it may save you some time on your journey.

Finding blockchain games is easy enough, just go to DappRadar (Dapp: Decentralized app) (https://dappradar.com/). When looking at the top charts there you’ll notice the Protocols. You’ll see things like Polygon, WAX, Thundercore, Hive, etc. These are all altcoins, and have the characteristics that are mandatory for high volume in-game assets NFTs, such as eliminating Gas fees (transaction fees).

For me the first step is picking a game I’m interested in. Very much like how you decide to buy a game console or upgrade your PC, the motivation always comes from some game you just have to have.

My search for this gaming started with Farsight, as it reminded me of one of the original games that got me into PC games in the first place, Masters of Orion ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion ), so that piqued my interest.

From my Coinbase account where I use my credit card to buy crypto I went to transfer money into Polygon (MATIC), which can be used to buy Farsite items. The minimum to transfer it out to my Metamask wallet was 81 Matric, which is around $100usd. Before committing I go to the game site (farsite.online) to take a closer look at it and decide if it’s something I really want to play.

Once getting logged in I’m confronted with what appears to be the one and only option to get started, buying a ship. Reading through the guide doesn’t really help sell me on the gameplay, it’s mostly about economics and NFT concepts, which it talks about first, the Gameplay section is not until Chapter 4. Skipping ahead to that it doesn’t really clear things up, as really I’m looking for in-game screenshots, because from reading through the guide it doesn’t sound like what I was expecting from a visual standpoint. Searching google I find nothing that appears to be in-game screens as well. At this point, I’m losing steam, but don’t give up and try to figure out what it will cost to buy a ship. I was able to understand that I pay 1000 game credits to be able to opt-in for airdrops (not only pay but have to promote the game on my social media feeds). Which I might have done until I read what the airdrop is, ‘Winner is selected between top 100 Ranked. The more Scores the higher is a chance to receive a reward.” Other than being a poorly constructed sentence, I have no idea how to get ranked but can only assume that it requires spending the most money on game items. I can also see that I’m able to buy crates directly that will give me a Ship for 350,000Cr., which I have no idea how much that is in USD, and the guide nor google could help me figure it out. At this point, I give up and move on to looking for another game to try.

One of the top blockchain games, Axie Infinity, may be fun, but with an entrance fee of $600+ USD to buy the 3 cards needed to even start playing, I may never know, as I’m not willing to pay that much to find out. Even if there is the promise of making a return on that investment, doing that will surely require a lot of time and effort playing a game I may not like, and having a little fun while trying to turn a profit is mandatory for me. From what I’ve read they are working on a free-to-play mode so people can try before they buy. In fairness, the prices started off a lot more reasonable, but the game concept worked and a flood of players drove the prices up, so you are certainly not complaining if you were someone who got into the game early.

One of my Aha moments was discovering ( https://zed.run/ ), owning race horses, and competing for money, now that sounds like fun to me. After signing up with much excitement I head to the marketplace to buy a horse, which says they are sold out and I need to go to Opensea.io to buy one aftermarket. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I wasn’t expecting $368.49 to be the cheapest one I could find. Wanting to just give it a try and see if I could luck box a win, it was more than I’m ready to invest at the moment. My feeling is that even if I paid that much I wouldn’t stand much chance against the competition who have likely dedicated more time and money to upgrading their horses. Still wanting to learn more about how I might build a competitive stable of horses I look into what it would take to upgrade (or in the case here, breeding), unfortunately, that said it is Temporarily Closed for maintenance. And again, if you don’t get in early the price goes up, just like the old bitcoin.

In crypto, people invest in projects that are no more than white papers, so it makes sense that game developers in the space operate along those same lines. Getting in early is how you make money, you are betting on future potential. Given that context, you can forgive things not being completed to some degree.

Maybe it’s better to think of these investments more like real estate investments where you are putting money into something before the ground is broken. You’ll need to keep an eye on the developers, making sure things are built in the right way. In a decentralized concept, it is fully expected you will participate in the building, and that’s the main point, you do it to participate in something in the creation of something from the ground up. And the earlier you get in the deeper the discount on your initial investment, but of course so does the risk profile then go up.

I am eager to play in the brave new world of blockchain games, using crypto money to pay for stuff and own NFTs of the game asset obtained, watch prices bounce up and down like ping pong balls, and be a part of the new frontier of gaming. Like all new frontiers in tech, the promise is better than the reality, but the early messy days are when there is opportunity. Currently, the barriers are high, but the learning is rewarding. I think at the end of the day one of the things that makes the crypto universe so immersive is the discovery, there are valuable gems hidden in the ever-expanding maze, and finding them is a game in itself.

And the search goes on….

Spores Network advisor Matt Orlich

About Spores Network
Spores Network founders believe that crypto will lead to decentralization of ownership and frictionless redistribution of capital. Their mission is to create an NFT ecosystem that is creator-centric, community-driven, frictionless, and borderless. Spores Network chooses to be a cross-chain DeFi-powered NFT marketplace defining decentralized pop culture. Spores co-founders include Duc Luu (Nasdaq IPOed serial entrepreneur ), Eric Hung Nguyen (former senior investment analyst at a top-10-worldwide hedge fund and blockchain angel investor), Paven Do (former blockchain & cryptonomics researcher at HK Applied Science & Tech. Research Institute), and a diverse team of advisors across blockchain and entertainment.

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Blockchain gaming from a traditional gamer perspective

Advisor’s Voice

Written by Spores Network