Bitcoin in games: How does it work?
Explaining the ZEBEDEE Bitcoin-powered gaming ecosystem
There’s a reason people are drawing parallels between Bitcoin today and the internet in its early days. Both are massively powerful tools that are profoundly changing the world. And Bitcoin’s transformative potential is multiplied when you apply it to virtual worlds.
Bitcoin is a tool that profoundly changes the possibilities for virtual economies. At ZEBEDEE, we’re using it to unlock a revolution in gaming. We’ve built both the infrastructure that developers need to integrate real-time Bitcoin transactions into their games and the tools gamers need to interact with the system.
The ZEBEDEE ecosystem supports anything from playing CS:GO for Bitcoin, to streamers collecting donations while they’re live, to developers making brand new game mechanics that weren’t possible before. This article will take you through the different parts and products to explain how all of it works together to make the points in your game matter.
tl;dr
The ZEBEDEE Mobile Wallet is your bridge between gaming and real-world currency.
The Gamertag is your name within ZEBEDEE and comes with a static QR code for easily collecting donations or payments anywhere online.
With Infuse, we’re introducing Bitcoin into existing popular games.
Our Developer Dashboard makes it possible to integrate Bitcoin seamlessly into your own games in innovative ways.
ZEBEDEE Mobile Wallet — The entry point into Bitcoin gaming
The ZEBEDEE Mobile Wallet is basically everything you need to start playing games for Bitcoin, participating in Bitcoin-powered esports events or collecting Bitcoin tips on your live streams. But one thing at a time.
Before you read all about it, maybe you’d like to install the ZEBEDEE wallet and take it for a spin yourself?
What is the ZEBEDEE Wallet?
At its core, the ZEBEDEE wallet is a custodial Bitcoin wallet much like any other — it allows you to send and receive Bitcoin instantly by using the Lightning Network. But that’s just the underlying mechanics of how it works. What sets our wallet apart is that we’ve built it specifically for gamers and streamers.
You don’t need to be into Bitcoin to use our wallet. We’ve designed it to be intuitive and simple to use even if you don’t know the first thing about crypto. Here’s a few cool things you can do with the ZEBEDEE wallet:
- Play Bitcoin-powered games and join Bitcoin Esports events like MintGox.
- Send other ZEBEDEE wallet users Bitcoin instantly, with zero fees AND attach a message and gif to your transaction for extra coolness. It’s been said that sending money over the internet should be as simple as sending a text message. Now it is.
- Get a static QR code you can use to collect payments instantly, anywhere and without a third-party processor — popular among streamers for taking tips.
- Easily get your friends into Bitcoin by generating vouchers redeemable in the wallet.
The Gamertag — your Bitcoin gaming identity
Your ZEBEDEE Gamertag is sort of like your username in the ZEBEDEE ecosystem. You set up your gamertag when you first install our wallet. From that point forward, receiving Bitcoin payments becomes as simple as sharing a QR code.
The Gamertag allows you to easily receive earnings from games or direct payments straight into your ZEBEDEE wallet. Other ZEBEDEE users can find you from a list of users in the wallet itself, but the real beauty of the Gamertag is that it comes with a static QR code anyone can use to send you Bitcoin. That means you can share your QR code and place it anywhere online for people to send you Bitcoin!
The Gamertag static QR code is like your bank account number, but much more simple to use, since it works with any Bitcoin Lightning wallet. You can save it, share it, print it or paste it anywhere you want. This is how streamers use ZEBEDEE to collect instant donations without third-party processor fees — they just overlay the static QR code on their stream! Literally no other setup needed.
Along with your Gamertag, you get a public page at zbd.gg that displays your static QR and a message you can set in the wallet. It will look like this zbd.gg/YOUTGAMERTAG. Check out mine at https://zbd.gg/simon
It’s really a very simple concept. But we couldn’t just leave it at that, now could we, so we made our static QR codes dynamic at the same time. You can use the ZEBEDEE wallet to change minimum payment amounts accepted and modify the message people get when they send you some Bitcoin. This will not change your QR code though!
To play games for Bitcoin, you first need Bitcoin-powered games
Here we come to the gist of our whole operation. It’s all well and good having a wallet that is specialized for gamers, but you still need Bitcoin-powered games to use it with. At the very core of the ZEBEDEE ecosystem is a way to put Bitcoin into any game.
We created ZEBEDEE to revolutionize gaming by giving developers the tools they need to give in-game currencies, actions and scores actual real-world value. Everything we’ve built are essentially tools to get this job done. But because this is all extremely new technology, which at first glance seems complex and abstract, we’ve created a showcase for the power of ZEBEDEE by integrating Bitcoin into one of the most popular multiplayer games today. We call this solution ZEBEDEE Infuse.
ZEBEDEE Infuse — Putting Bitcoin into CS:GO (and soon other major titles)
Our team has been making Bitcoin games since 2013. Along the way, we’ve learnt one thing: the problem isn’t finding awesome ways to put Bitcoin in games, it’s how to make games people actually want to play. The gaming space is extremely competitive, and it’s not exactly easy to just go out and create the next CS:GO and get millions of people to play it. Luckily, we don’t have to.
To demonstrate ZEBEDEE in action and showcase what’s possible in Bitcoin gaming, we’ve developed Infuse. Infuse is a desktop app that brings Bitcoin to existing games people already know and love. We take data from a game via API, do a little magic and voila, we get a game that’s upgraded with real-time Bitcoin transactions. This could be anything from giving your score a value in satoshis, rewarding you for clever plays or penalizing you if you shoot your teammates.
To start off, we’ve put instant Bitcoin transactions into one of the most popular multiplayer games out there: Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Our implementation works like this: When you join a server that has been “infused”, you need to pay an entry fee (this is easily done with our wallet). The fees from all entrants are collected and added to the total prize pool. If you play well, you’ll get a bigger portion of the prize, based on your score. Since Lightning transactions are so fast, you don’t have to wait until the end of the game for all scores to be tallied up: you can quit the match whenever you want and immediately withdraw your earnings up to that point. To play CS:GO for Bitcoin, signup here.
When you tie in-game score with a currency that has value in the real world (and you can withdraw at any time), the stakes suddenly get a lot higher. Earning money by playing games is great, but, from our perspective, that’s not even the main point. The point is to have skin in the game. Because winning or losing money in real-time as a direct consequence of how well you’re playing takes the passion and drive of competitive gaming to a whole new level.
ZEBEDEE Developer Dashboard — powering a new age in gaming
While Infuse is a great new way to spice up existing games, it’s basically just an overlay and doesn’t dig much deeper than the surface level of the game. To really take advantage of the possibilities unlocked by ZEBEDEE, developers can implement Bitcoin into games at a core level, as a part of essential game mechanics. This is where our Developer Dashboard comes into play.
The ZEBEDEE Developer Dashboard gives game developers a powerful tool for fusing game mechanics with Bitcoin. Through our APIs and SDKs, game developers can connect Bitcoin transactions with in-game actions, which opens the door to a lot of innovation and new approaches.
With Bitcoin in your game, the points you collect by playing suddenly start to matter a lot more. Withdraw them from the game, use them to tip your favorite streamer or even transfer them to another game. Or use them to buy a car if you’ve accumulated that kind of dough! This is a very strong incentive for users to not just try a game, but stick around.
However, it’s not just about replacing the points you earn within the game with an outside currency. What ZEBEDEE is all about is unlocking innovation by enabling new and creative ways to use payments in games. Here’s a taste of what we mean by that:
- Monetize EVERYTHING — Literally any in-game action or event can be tied to a transaction. Finished a level? Get Bitcoin. Lost a life? Lose Bitcoin. Picked up a powerup? Decide if you want to use it or turn it into Bitcoin and cash out instead. The only limit is your imagination.
- Break the fourth wall — Involve spectators in the gameplay to blur the lines between player and audience. Running out of stamina on a crucial quest? Donators can heal or buff your character. Think that’s cheating? Enable viewers to give you a handicap if you’ve got it too easy.
- Microtransactions — Since Bitcoin is divisible into tiny units (1 satoshi is 0.00000001 BTC, which is roughly equal to 0.0003 USD), you can tie financial transactions to small in-game actions without breaking the bank.
- Better ways to advertise — No one particularly enjoys seeing ads in games, but they’re a necessary part of the experience. Game studios need to make a living somehow! But what if ads could be handled in a way that’s non-intrusive or actually fun? Like picking up branded power-ups or getting paid Bitcoin for interacting with sponsors. For example, we put a Bitrefil-branded gas station into our Mario Kart-esque game Bitcoin Rally, which fills your “tank” up with Bitcoin when you drive through it.
- Establish a shared economy across games — Introduce the same currency to multiple games to create a meta-economy. Since players can withdraw that same currency into the real world with no barriers, your in-game economy instantly gets real-world value.
And much more, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination (and game development skills).
The Lightning Network — The revolutionary tech powering ZEBEDEE
The magic of the ZEBEDEE ecosystem comes from the Lightning Network, a fast and scalable network built on top of Bitcoin where transactions are almost instant and come with virtually no fees (seriously, Lightning fees are tiny). While transactions on the main Bitcoin network can be too expensive and not fast enough to support the kind of micropayments we wanted to add to games, the Lightning Network gives us an instant and practically free way to move money. More importantly, the digital nature of Bitcoin makes it programmable — it’s money you can program to respond to in-game actions or events. And that’s the real magic behind ZEBEDEE.
By building the ZEBEDEE ecosystem on top of the Bitcoin Lightning Network, we can give developers a powerful tool for inventing brand new game mechanics, while at the same time connecting the points you earn in-game with a real-world global payment network. The Bitcoin that lands in your wallet is instantly yours and you can do whatever you want with it. This is inherently different from platforms like Twitch, where you don’t get paid out until you break a certain threshold, or payment service providers like PayPal that charge significant fees.
At the end of the day, it’s not really about Bitcoin, it’s about new ways of moving value in games. Bitcoin and its Lightning Network just happen to be the best tools for the job.
How do I join the Bitcoin gaming revolution?
If you’re a game maker, apply for access to the ZEBEDEE Developer Dashboard and start adding Bitcoin into your games.
If you’re a gamer, it’s even more simple:
Step 1: get the ZEBEDEE wallet. Step 2: start playing Bitcoin-powered games.
OK, so that may have been a bit of an over-simplification… This entire space is still very new and there aren’t that many Bitcoin games around. For now, check out Infuse to play CS:GO for Bitcoin and join us at the next MintGox Esports event, to experience what Bitcoin adds to gaming yourself.
To give you a jump start, we’ll send a bit of spending money your way when you set up the ZEBEDEE wallet (you’ll get a transaction from one of our guys a few minutes after setting up your Gamertag) — you can earn more by beating other players in Bitcoin-powered games. But don’t wait too long because people are getting seriously good and the competition is more fierce by the day!
