Crypto-Coinage, The Foundations of Crypto-Gaming
I find that the Enjin and XP projects are truly remarkable. In this piece, I’ll delve into the technicalities and fundamentals that make these concepts so powerful.
By Tommy , Edited by Kiev Martinez and Bridget Daley.
The sheer impact that crypto currency has brought to our world today is endless. The financial revolution is imminent and everything is changing. Luckily for us gaming enthusiasts we have game developing veterans and programmers looking after us. Geniuses across the world who aim to provide gamers with the ability to financially sustain themselves through gaming.
Let’s walk through some avenues of digital currency, crypto gaming and cryptoeconomics.
What if I tell you — hey, let’s run across the bridge and back, it’ll get me 5,000XP and I’ll buy you a round tonight.
Yes. You read that right.
What if life was a video game.
That earned you bits of data.
That you could then trade in for money.
Okay, wait a minute, let’s take it back. First, let’s talk about companies like Enjin, which are already rewarding players with in-game rewards exchangeable for hard currency. Enjin is a company that currently uses their applications to apply a monetary incentive to existing games. For example, Enjin’s first example of a perceivable experience is their integration with Minecraft.
1. Enjin
Minecraft has numerous servers for players to connect with in order to play. The game itself is famous for being an open ended game universe with no real purpose — simply destroy, to create — and destroy again. Users have the ability to roam and travel around the virtual world that is Minecraft to their heart’s content. The game starts with your player looking from first person POV, your almost lego-like fist the sole tool given to you to destroy any animate or inanimate object with. After punching enough, “you get the wood, you build the cabin.”
But really, the fist punching allows an endless series of options for your Minecraft experience. Through the concept of destroying trees, rock, grass and animals, you can eventually gather enough resources to manufacture advanced devices such as a fully functioning computer on Minecraft.
Minecraft is kind of like the cheesy answer to the meaning of life, you find (build) your own purpose. Luckily for us, Enjin is looking to give you money for that.Through simple evolution of civilization, Minecraft players come together to create a system of supply and demand, an economy, and even large scale interactive worlds. This economy grows, resulting in the need for currency for players to interact with.
Within this economy, there will be a few forms of in-game items (swords, shields, etc.), some of which can be traded for Enjin and the other which can be used in-game. The way these items are procured, or distributed, is a) as a form of reward for minting coins, b) a form of reward for completing missions, and c) loot from defeating enemies. Finally, because this is the world that we live in, the objectification of these small bytes of information gain value by being traded in for Enjin tokens, which are a finite resource based on real world currency controlled by a third party.
Amazing, getting paid to punch digital trees. It makes you wonder where you should have really chased the paper.
Now — in my odd head space — the next step would almost be to cube this Enjin idea. How about we earn valuable points not only in the game, but in the non-game world? Yea — that’s right. I want 10,000XP for running a marathon on time. 10,000XP that I can trade in for $10.00. Well, my friend — let’s talk about XP (Experience Points) — the platform that wants to do just that — but give you the power to control it.
2. XP
So how does XP compare? If Enjin could be the road that leads us to the apex of professional gaming, where can it grow from there? Let’s go from the 2D information world, to our world. Let’s get rewarded for completing video game assignments in real life — things we do enjoy doing. To simplify, XP is a cryptocurrency token with its own version of the blockchain. XP will use video games as a medium to expand what they hope will become an empire, serving as the foundation for a digitally enhanced future.
XP will bridge together the consumer and the merchandiser — branding will involve use of points in real time locations — whether it’s a restaurant, or a gaming convention — a marathon, or fundraising for cancer — the economic impact would be immense.
Harking back to the early days of Dungeons and Dragons, “experience points” — or XP, were the tiny bits of data you hoarded in order to gain new abilities, spells or move onto a new area to explore.
“Everything we do in life gives us experience. Each trip we take, each concert we attend, and each new friend we meet, contributes to the eternal distributed ledger of our lives. Why not use this experience? Why not find a way to account for it and to make it work for us as we go through life? Why not meet with others, who also have experience, and share another unique experience together. This sharing economy of experience is what XP was created to facilitate,” states XP’s White Paper on their website.
XP, or experience points, are a long-time used term in video games, after immobilizing an enemy, completing a mission or finishing a mini game, the player is rewarded with experience points. Experience points ((or XP for short (I see what you did there, XP)), have racked up in countless numbers in each and every gamers life. New levels, new spells, new areas — all thanks to XP. Now imagine, as you cook your family dinner, it scores you XP for domestic duties, and a bonus +10 on spousal happiness. Which means you can make $20.00 this month.
Boom.
3. Ethereum
Enjin runs on the Ethereum network, this has its downsides. In the past Ethereum has been crippled by incredibly high fees and delayed transactions. The Ethereum protocol currently does not process enough blocks per second and is easily congested. Scalability is a prerequisite for any blockchain application — scalability that is based on the quick and efficient processing of blocks in order to avoid both congestion and profitable fee selection.
Hopefully, with the lightning network (or possibly the implementation of 3rd Gen applications e.g. EOS) will see a proper growth and direction for Enjin.
With a similar premise of rewarding gamers with compensation for their participation, both companies see a burgeoning, tappable market to found their empires on.This will lead to marketing tie-ins with mainstream media — tournaments, exhibits, even live broadcasting.
4. Comparison
However, there is one interesting factor that divides the two companies. The final product.
Both companies have a different outlook on the world and how their gaming systems can integrate. Enjin strives to create a new digital world in which players can join in order to enjoy gaming and receive assets. XP has a clear agenda, which is large scale adoption and accessibility to consumers, like you. If XP follows its plan successfully, it would be part of the restaurant down your street, favorite bar by the river and a part of your local school. Starting an XP college fund.
This is also what makes XP unique in the realm of crypto-gaming. Rewarding a player in both his real life and his virtual counterpart encourages users to feel like part of the XP ecosystem without the exclusivity of payment.
XP has developed a protocol system which consists of a system of nodes which provide a multifaceted service to the XP platform. The nodes are split up in 5 different categories to effectively target XP’s most ideal demographics. These “Pentanodes” provide a wide array of specialized services/rewards. Supernodes reward miners for investing a smell fee, while Masternodes bring a greater ROI of payment in the form of passive income, greater mining benefits, and more XP awards. Devnodes are provided to developers as tools for co-integration between 3rd party platforms and XP itself. Geonodes, the forefront of XP’s advancing co-reality integration technology, are located within real world locations that transmit rewards for actions to the virtual world. Only a small handful of tech start-ups and companies are using these proximity points that connect the digital world to ours. Geonodes can be established veritably anywhere that has a digital connection. Lastly, the Mothernode IS the very core of the XP technology that makes you think of a bunch of white guys in wigs in a hot, muggy room — the Mothernode ensures that XP power is distributed among all coin holders. Users of XP will have the ability to vote directly for the future of the platform and the rules it chooses to pass or not to pass. Shareholders are either passively or actively responsible for the direction of the platform through their actions.
Although, Enjin is built on the Ethereum platform however they do not accommodate for decentralization. I have struggled to find what consensus model the company uses which leads me to believe the creators of Enjin will always be in control of the future of Enjin. On a personal note, I do think this leaves room for corruption and possibly conversion of the game into something with a strictly monetary purpose. Not ignoring the fact the markets stems from a monetary incentive, they do but in order for a game to stay relevant, the content needs to come first.
5. Market Sustainability
“Based on Quettra’s data, we can see that the average app loses 77% of its DAUs within the first 3 days after the install. Within 30 days, it’s lost 90% of DAUs. Within 90 days, it’s over 95%” Andrew Chen, Linkedin
That’s because mobile apps are generally inadequate, even by measure of market relevancy. Eventually 95% of applications are uninstalled because they are worthless applications copied and pasted from what’s trending on the app store. That is why it is imperative the content should be enjoyable and a unique experience should be available. Otherwise, the game itself would sink underneath games that actually serve their initial purpose.
Both XP and Enjin are crypto gaming entities with completely different agendas, however, their facilitation of user’s virtual lives and subsequent coin procurement draws an interesting contrast. XP strives to create an intertwined digital, real-life ecosystem, where your digital account is tied to everyday activities, it essentially uses gaming to expand the facets of its own usage. Whereas Enjin strives to create a physical world within a digital sphere. A world where people simply live their lives as normal.
XP explains how it intends to implement its decentralized ecosystem and its plans to scale it long term. I do not see Enjin giving us that in depth, detailed outline of how it wishes to scale — which is what I would consider one of, if not the most important factor, of crypto today.
The two concepts differ drastically in presentation. Enjin’s supplements (wallet, website, whitepaper) are very colorful and full of animations, whereas XP is quite bland, no colors, just straight information. This offers an interesting discussion on ICO marketing, begging the question: is flashy marketing a method for coin developers to compensate for a less satisfactory experience than its alternatives? I fear for the future of crypto marketing, I think it promotes the deceptive tactic of empty promotion, not the ingenuity that innovates and serves as a fundamental basis for blockchain technology. And in that light, if we are to see an escalation in decentralized apps that simply market themselves better than others, then we are pushing away the true geniuses that wish to enlighten people and share their findings in hopes to move toward a decentralized world.
6. Conclusion
I hold both XP and Enjin with high regard. Taking into account the relative simplicity of XP’s incentivization and monetization of decent human behaviour, both gaming and life may never be the same. As well as simultaneously playing roles of government and a marketing firms with nodes: In terms of the former, how does the government encourage private consumer spending, and the latter, how do I effectively advertise my product? Nodes successfully consolidate the two and facilitate as an advertisement for their coin or ‘experience’ (no pun intended) meanwhile performing the oftentimes serpentine task of preventing monetary hoarding. And I know my fellow gamers would die out of happiness to be paid for their skills. Enjin, on the other hand, hosts a prime example of a ubiquitous marketing conundrum: do they sacrifice quality for pervasive recognition? if it continues to focus on quality games like Minecraft, it will prove to be relevant, but if they fall victim to the trap of mobile gaming, I wouldn’t maintain much faith for their sustainability.
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, merely my opinion on the project. Do your own research. I did not receive payment from either team and this is in no way sponsored content. I hold both XP and Enjin Tokens.
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LTC : LXDXgNkRrdu6SzepQ3Zt625zw1U23EdGah
ETH: 0xF11Af5c1c1525f33BD7AF5C3C0fAAA759A4b6934
BTC: 1BMikdaHtycPiuGwYBYxQPbADZuYK8DcY
XP: XXXxEGNwPBETvuy2J5LWs25onwTALSLawy
ENJ: 0xb4ca789151c7997567af714cae58420924b319af
