3 reasons why you need to own your items

While lurking on Reddit the other day we came across a thread about the benefits of owning your in-game items.

One of the comments read: “I’ve never owned my items and I’m fine with it. Why is owning them going to be any different?”.

And you might be asking yourself the same question. But think for a moment, if you’ve never experienced it, how do you know you don’t need it?

Do you think people knew what life with YouTube was like in the 90s? Those of you who remember the good ol’ days, would you go back to not having YouTube?

No? We thought so.

We are always talking about wanting our gamers to own their items because it’s important they know what this means. Today we’ll briefly explain what asset ownership means, and why we believe it is essential for gamers.

Traditionally, the assets bought or earned in-game don’t belong to the gamer, but to the game publisher (that would be us, Stick Sports). Those assets are “lent” to the player by the publisher, but if the user deletes the app, the items are gone forever (and so is the money they invested in the game).

Thanks to blockchain technology, those items belong 100% to the gamer, and they may be exchanged for real-world value (aka $$$) or traded for other things, just like anything else you own.

For example, let’s say you’re playing our new Stick Cricket game (as you should), if you buy or win a cricket bat, that item will go to your digital wallet, and you’ll be the only one able to use it. You will be able to sell it, trade it, loan it, customise it or do whatever you feel like doing with it, and we, as the publisher, can’t do anything about it. If you decide to stop playing the game, the items will still be in your digital wallet.

So, how does this benefit you?

A new reward system.

As a publisher, we want to reward our fans for the money and time they invest in our games. We know many of them play on a daily basis, it’s almost like having a hobby, so we figured it’s time their effort pays off.

Those items have real-world value, and players should be the ones benefiting from them. For instance, no two bats are the same. A bat played by a demon Stick Cricketer may hold its value differently than one that has seen lots of wickets. And most importantly, Stick Sports won’t be the one setting the price of your bat.

(to give you a sense of how much in-game assets can cost, Fortnite accounts are currently being sold for hundreds of dollars on eBay.)

You’re at the centre of everything.

Since players now own their digital gear, a whole new ecosystem of services will develop around it, providing trading and custom possibilities way beyond the publisher’s scope. Examples of this already exist in World of Warcraft or Fortnite. However, these sites are unofficial, unregulated, and often result in player’s accounts bans and scams.

With this technology, user marketplaces are not only allowed but often encouraged.

Your assets are safe with you.

All your assets are secure and protected thanks to how the blockchain works (watch this video for more detailed info).

Have you ever heard of the game RuneScape? Well, because of a glitch in the game, a gamer called Durial321 managed to kill any player and take all the items they were wearing at that moment, in what today is called the Falador Massacre (dramatic, huh?). He stole a bunch of rare items that are nowadays worth thousands of US dollars and those assets were never recovered.

Security is at the heart of this technology: a sophisticated decentralised network and smart contracts assure ownership. So don’t worry, you can sleep at night knowing that your cricket bat is safe in your digital locker.

These are just three of the reasons why we think owning your items will change the way you interact and engage with our games. New games offering these features are being launched every month, and this is just the beginning!

Want to know more about asset ownership? Join our Telegram group and chat with us!