The Different Types of ERC Standards Used for Video Games
As the burgeoning blockchain gaming industry speeds ahead with new projects and new technology to support them, a range of different ERC standards are available for game developers in this space. Here we take a look at the different options currently in play.
So, for those of you who are reading this wondering “what does ERC even mean?” — well, it stands for Ethereum Request for Comments. But to break that down even further these are a set of standards that the individual smart contract should implement. Depending on the ERC standards used, the tokens themselves can have different applications from currency through to tokenisable items.
ERC-20 or ERC-223
Almost all ICOs which are on Ethereum network use this standard for its tokens, the same goes with Hash Rush in-game currency Rush Coin. Because this is the most used standard out there, the benefit is that as a developer you can find a lot of use cases, and it is more simple for applications and smart contracts to interact with it. That means crypto exchanges, for example, can avoid additional development to add new ERC-20 tokens in their platform. That is the problem with ERC-223. Considering it is a relatively new proposed standard, it is missing real-time use cases and baggage that comes along with it. This means that crypto exchanges may need to work extra to add these tokens to their platform. It has improved the ERC20 standard by avoiding accidents of lost tokens inside contracts that are not designed to work with sent tokens and making it cheaper to transfer them.
ERC621
This is an improved ERC20 standard in a sense that it allows the contract owner to increase and decrease the token supply in circulation. Some of the Hash Rush in-game units could be ERC631 standard tokens. For example, after finishing the Trog quest you receive the strong and fearless (albeit) clumsy Ernack Trog. This Ernack Trog unit is an ERC621 token that can be easily traded between players. The player, however, can only receive it when finishing the quest, which means Hash Rush will have to change the circulating token amount.
ERC721
This could be called the “collectable” standard because of all the blockchain games out there that use this for their collectable blockchain assets. As the word collectable imposes, each ERC721 is unique and that makes it more advanced than ERC20. In Hash Rush, this proposed standard can be used for a lot. For example, every player will receive a planet which he will colonize, and, when done, move forward to the next one. Asset as a planet will be the same, but the owner and milestones reached during the colonization will differ from player to player. For this reason, the ERC721 standard is a perfect fit for the players’ planet.
ERC420
This is a token standard introduced by PePeDapp, but not yet presented to the Ethereum community. The same as ERC721, it is a non-fungible token. Hash Rush introduces items that give a cosmetic improvement to your colony called Pink Meteorite and Blue Meteorite. The holders of these items instead of green trees have pink or blue. These items could be ERC420 token. These Meteorites could hit different player’s planets, but players will discover them in different stages and times. So for example, the first player discovers a Meteorite — the blue one — and gets Blue Meteorite with an ID number: M1. The second player also discovers a Meteorite — the pink one — and gets an ID number: M2. The Third player then discovers a Blue Meteorite and gets ID number: M3. On the market Blue Meteorite with an ID number M1 would go higher than M3. For a mechanic such as these, the meteorites could be utilised as ERC420 standard tokens.
ERC1155
Thanks to Witek Radomski for not only setting the outlines for the widely used ERC721 standard but for even more advanced ERC1155, too. The ERC-1155 protocol allows for an infinite number of both fungible and non-fungible items to be deployed through a single contract. It is also lightweight and easy for most networks to handle. What could this mean for Hash Rush, you ask? The problem with the token standards mentioned before is that for each item, unit, and resource we would need to create a separate smart contract, and doing a trade between players outside the Hash Rush market would be expensive.
We will give you two examples of how Hash Rush could benefit from this standard:
Reward pool
Lets imagine that in the first month players are fighting for a reward pool that consists of 15Gh/s mining power (30 ETH), 200 Runic Essences and 30 Construction Boosts. Reward pool is divided between players according to how many crypto crystals they have mined. So player one will receive 0.4 ETH + 12 Runic Essence + 3 construction boost potion; player two will receive 0.2 ETH + 10 Runic Essence + 1 construction boost, and so on. Runic Essence, construction boost could be ERC1155 standard token. It will make it easier for Hash Rush to generate and send to reward pool winners, and for players to explore the Reward pool on blockchain, because we will not need to create for each resource, item and so on a separate contract.
New item crafting
Player has gathered 2 Runic Essences and 200 purple berries. Both of these items are ERC1155 tokens. These items allow him to craft 1 mining boost and 1 resource gathering boost. Both of these boosts again are ERC1155 standard tokens. The player does the crafting and receives the boosts, but loses the resources. On blockchain, this would be called an automatic swap or simply put — exchange. If these items would not be ERC1155 tokens it would be a 4-step process on the blockchain. But thanks to the ERC1155 standard it is now just a 2-step process, saving time and money for the same work done.
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