8 ms·

Why crypto gaming is not the future

39 points by allenleee 4y ago

bombcar 4y ago
There is ONE possible thing I could see "blockchain" gaming allowing, which would be for a game to continue to "run" after the company no longer cares about it. Maybe in that case you could get some sort of consensus algorithm to track something.
- sorry_outta_gas 4y ago
  For a light definition of run, the blockchain only serves are a possible storage site for login information and partial inventory and even just that is dependant on who/what has rights to call into the smartcontract to mutate data in effect it's just a hashtable of addresses to id's all meaning is derivied from other services
- throw_m239339 4y ago
  Does it make sense from an financial standpoint for a game company to run a multiplayer game server on the blockchain? Seems to me that if it did make sense financially then game companies would all be doing it already.
  - redisman 4y ago
    Well no. It’s so outlandish that anyone who has built game servers would laugh you out of the room. They require ideally sub 30ms response times. Saving the whole history of the world on a blockchain is also useless and wasteful.
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  Or they could just, y'know, release their server code? Or hell, you can have fans reverse engineer it, which has already happened quite a few times (most recently with Dark Souls 3 since From Software still hasn't brought back the servers, most likely because they're trying to push players towards Elden Ring).
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Which would likely go alongside it; the only thing MAYBE it would allow is everyone to continue to play "in one big agreed-on world". I suspect it's unlikely and better handled by just using a database and a trusted group but it's the only idea I have been able to come up with.
  - cwkoss 4y ago
    I think the way most games are set up, the 'drops' part isn't compatible with self hosting - how do you verify someone accomplished the thing (completed the quest, killed the boss, etc.) without cheating? If you don't verify, the economy gets flooded and value of everything approaches zero - even if it is on the blockchain. If the entity controlling the economy isn't controlling the servers the code is running on, is anti-cheat feasible? I think there could be a novel game economy pattern could emerge from this that could be compelling (where items are not tied to in-game accomplishments), but I'm skeptical blockchains can mesh with current popular game economies. The only alternative seems like it would require all of the game logic to be encoded on the blockchain, which would mean killing a monster would cost money (to encode the transaction) - would have to be an extremely compelling game to justify the expense.
    - cwkoss 4y ago
      Maybe a game could be created that's an autonomous CCG game - so the 'game' is played half on self hosted servers where you take a set of cards, configure and build your 'deck' and play test games with yourself (potentially just locally), then you could engage in 'ranked battles' on controlled servers which have the authority to issue new cards. Each server could have an allowlist of which servers' cards are playable on their server, so it would allow for a decentralized network of card issuers and a web of trust to determine which cards are valid in which contexts. (Gameplay doesn't necessarily need to be card-based, could be autonomous entities like soldiers and tanks with a set of buff/modifier cards.)
- paxys 4y ago
  How does a game "run" on a blockchain?
  - rabuse 4y ago
    It doesn't.
rvz 4y ago
> Games are designed for people to have intrinsic fun, they’re not optimised for speculators to try and make as much money as possible. True, and 'play-to-earn' will make it even worse. We have just seen it with Axie Infinity and it is unsustainable as the author has already explained and makes zero sense to apply this 'play to earn' model in games that already have rampant micro-transactions and loot boxes that are also modelled on casino slot machines. > But not at all in the way it is doing now. No way. Not everything has to be on-chain. 0x has an off-chain order book for its DEX, but on-chain settlement. The future will have to be a mix of centralised and decentralised. Yes, since we know that both Bitcoin and Ethereum have both failed in scaling for on-chain applications and have resorted to using off-chain layer-2 systems. But even applying that contraption anywhere further confuses the user to even begin to use it. At least for Lightning it is somewhat easy for users to use such that it the swapping, transacting is hidden from them; but you can't call it 'Bitcoin'. So both centralised and decentralised as a mix will exist (Lightning), but certainly not for 'play-to-earn'. Even thinking about applying this layer-2 play-to-earn contraption to games is beyond unnecessary with no advantages whatsoever.
exdsq 4y ago
I’ve had quite a bit of fun playing Gods Unchained which is like Hearthstone but on Ethereum. What does that actually mean? The cards are NFTs so you can buy and sell them. You can also buy card packs with regular micropayments like other TCGs. However because you can sell cards it suddenly becomes a lot more interesting - you can make real money from your legendaries. Not much but I heard earlier in the year people were making $50 a week. The market for high value cards is driven by people wanting to get win streaks for more packs to unlock rare cards to sell, people buy packs from the store because it’s a TCG and that money is in the ecosystem to invest in new card designs/run tournaments/etc… it genuinely works quite nicely and I’m against microtransactions in general because you can get it back out again.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  I always thought that this was the worst aspect of TCGs! People complain about "pay to win" business models in PC games, but it's 100x worse in dead-tree games. Maybe you spend a few bucks here and there on some kind of premium subscription, whatever, things cost money. But having to physically buy cards always really sucked, especially as a young person without a lot of money, and it was one thing that kept me away from getting more into games like Magic: The Gathering. There was some thrill in collecting, sure, but I would rather have the collecting be an optional side activity, not an essential part of the game. I do see what you are saying about micro transactions though, and about the player's ability to re-capture some of their investment after they are done with the game or ingame item.
  - exdsq 4y ago
    Yeah TCG's get really expensive. Not as bad as Warhammer, but definitely up there! My only real point is that it's a use case where I'm going to probably buy packs anyway, but now I can buy specific cards & sell cards I get that I don't want to recoup some money. I think I'm actually $7 positive which is pretty weird, I don't know any other game I've played before where I'm cashflow positive. As another commenter said this is all perfectly possible without NFTs and blockchains and stuff, it's just nice to get web stores, payment processing, and creator fee percentages on resale all for free with very little coding/cost.
Melting_Harps 4y ago
> This week, Take Two Interactive announced that they were acquiring Zynga. Haha, and this is what is being measured? Honestly, delivery is the biggest fruit in gaming in my eye; the space is over saturated with games no one plays and will be 30% less than it was only weeks after it's release. I saw Xbox started a game streaming service that while a bit on the rough side really proves what is left to innovate outside of hardware since the supply shortages with semiconductors make that nearly impossible. It's always been my guess that GME would do a digital Gamefly play with the influx of cash they got from the Stonk BS, but so far it's the same monoliths that keep making the biggest moves: Sony and M$. I think their will be a usecase for microtxs and maybe for EnE encryption, but beyond that this is all ICO/NFT hype looking for a way to perpetuate it's own existence. People played Sarutobi and other tournmanets because it was a way to battle test technology (specifically LN) while having fun and maybe earn some sats, but even it's most devout believers never thought for a second Sony would upend it's business model for using a token on it's own blockchain for the sake of being 'web3' complaint. I'd argue not since Seals with clubs has their ever been an actual use-case for gaming, and it used Bitcoin (often misrepresented as crypto) for a reason: they needed to bypass financial censorship.
sharemywin 4y ago
Sounds like Play to Earn doesn't make sense which seems reasonable, but I imagine "Pay to Win" could work. Some kind of skill game or distributed casino
- duskwuff 4y ago
  Pay-to-win games have existed without the blockchain for decades. Quite a few Korean and Chinese MMOs used to operate on this principle, for example. It turns out that a game where you have to spend money to be successful, and where spending more money makes you more successful, is not a very fun game.
charcircuit 4y ago
I do believe there is a future in it as it is an easy value add to your game. I believe this is most beneficial to small studios who don't have the resources to develop systems for trading, selling, buying, or whatever for in game itemss. You can instead just plug into an existing ecosystem. I agree with the article that it's better (for the studio) if you have your own (centralized) system for your game, but I feel he is missing the cost of building that out.
mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
One element the author called out at the bottom was a possibility of ICO (coin offering? maybe that includes token offering) where its like a kickstarter where the crypto involvement is for paying back investors somehow via in-game NFTs. Like it could be investors/coin/token holders get some % of in-game purchases like a royalty for backing the game. This concept could apply to any digital business as well with some safeguards built in (escrow or something) to prevent/minimize scams. Actually sounds more like an IPO and "shares" are really NFT's with dividends going to token holders. Could be an interesting model if its all crypto, the volatility is likely the biggest issue then. (I may be using completely incorrect terms, I'm not an expert on these things but it sounds like a plausible implementation)
- paxys 4y ago
  This model already exists – fund a game (say on Kickstarter) and in exchange get a free copy and/or $X of in-game virtual currency. What does blockchain/crypto/NFT add to this?
  - mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
    I guess the only thing I can think of is the ability to sell your “share” of the project and what you get back as a royalty after launch is usable outside the game. Almost all scenarios do end up with “you don’t need crypto/blockchain for that”. Edit to add: there are many examples of software solutions using tech when there are other tech solutions also viable. This doesn’t negate the possible use of another tech just because something else also does it. See NoSQL for instance.
iLoveOncall 4y ago
Because nothing crypto related is the future? Because people want to play for fun not to worry about earning or spending money? Does this really need an article?
t_mann 4y ago
Interesting analysis, especially the economics. Just a few thoughts: - My take was always 'Anything-to-earn' isn't a game, it's a job. And it's at least as old as WoW grinding farms. - A technical point: you actually can implement capital controls on a blockchain. Tokens aren't anything that sits in your wallet, they're more like a spreadsheet, and you have a Turing-complete language at your hand to define the rules of how it's modified. - I don't know Axie Infinity, but I think there were Pokemon/Tamagotchi/MTG-style on-chain games that people played just for fun, before anyone was talking about P2E (I remember the name Crypto Kitties). So it is conceivable to have fun with on-chain games, and if you can sell your game avatars, why not (it's not even uncommon)?
alkonaut 4y ago
Anyone who believes in play to earn or thinks an amalgamation of games and NFTs will happen, probably also believes these “you can use your CoD skin in Battlefield!” type claims. It’s interesting this, that despite being enormously technical and complex topics, it’s almost as if the tendency to be optimistic about them is inversely proportional to general understanding of technology. You don’t hear anyone make a well formulated technical argument as to how all these seemingly impossible things will work. And there is no end to the people handwaving things like the tweet in the article.

39 points by allenleee 4y ago

There is ONE possible thing I could see "blockchain" gaming allowing, which would be for a game to continue to "run" after the company no longer cares about it. Maybe in that case you could get some sort of consensus algorithm to track something.

sorry_outta_gas 4y ago
For a light definition of run, the blockchain only serves are a possible storage site for login information and partial inventory and even just that is dependant on who/what has rights to call into the smartcontract to mutate data in effect it's just a hashtable of addresses to id's all meaning is derivied from other services
throw_m239339 4y ago
Does it make sense from an financial standpoint for a game company to run a multiplayer game server on the blockchain? Seems to me that if it did make sense financially then game companies would all be doing it already.
- redisman 4y ago
  Well no. It’s so outlandish that anyone who has built game servers would laugh you out of the room. They require ideally sub 30ms response times. Saving the whole history of the world on a blockchain is also useless and wasteful.
HideousKojima 4y ago
Or they could just, y'know, release their server code? Or hell, you can have fans reverse engineer it, which has already happened quite a few times (most recently with Dark Souls 3 since From Software still hasn't brought back the servers, most likely because they're trying to push players towards Elden Ring).
- bombcar 4y ago
  Which would likely go alongside it; the only thing MAYBE it would allow is everyone to continue to play "in one big agreed-on world". I suspect it's unlikely and better handled by just using a database and a trusted group but it's the only idea I have been able to come up with.
- cwkoss 4y ago
  I think the way most games are set up, the 'drops' part isn't compatible with self hosting - how do you verify someone accomplished the thing (completed the quest, killed the boss, etc.) without cheating? If you don't verify, the economy gets flooded and value of everything approaches zero - even if it is on the blockchain. If the entity controlling the economy isn't controlling the servers the code is running on, is anti-cheat feasible? I think there could be a novel game economy pattern could emerge from this that could be compelling (where items are not tied to in-game accomplishments), but I'm skeptical blockchains can mesh with current popular game economies. The only alternative seems like it would require all of the game logic to be encoded on the blockchain, which would mean killing a monster would cost money (to encode the transaction) - would have to be an extremely compelling game to justify the expense.
  - cwkoss 4y ago
    Maybe a game could be created that's an autonomous CCG game - so the 'game' is played half on self hosted servers where you take a set of cards, configure and build your 'deck' and play test games with yourself (potentially just locally), then you could engage in 'ranked battles' on controlled servers which have the authority to issue new cards. Each server could have an allowlist of which servers' cards are playable on their server, so it would allow for a decentralized network of card issuers and a web of trust to determine which cards are valid in which contexts. (Gameplay doesn't necessarily need to be card-based, could be autonomous entities like soldiers and tanks with a set of buff/modifier cards.)
paxys 4y ago
How does a game "run" on a blockchain?
- rabuse 4y ago
  It doesn't.

rvz 4y ago

> Games are designed for people to have intrinsic fun, they’re not optimised for speculators to try and make as much money as possible. True, and 'play-to-earn' will make it even worse. We have just seen it with Axie Infinity and it is unsustainable as the author has already explained and makes zero sense to apply this 'play to earn' model in games that already have rampant micro-transactions and loot boxes that are also modelled on casino slot machines. > But not at all in the way it is doing now. No way. Not everything has to be on-chain. 0x has an off-chain order book for its DEX, but on-chain settlement. The future will have to be a mix of centralised and decentralised. Yes, since we know that both Bitcoin and Ethereum have both failed in scaling for on-chain applications and have resorted to using off-chain layer-2 systems. But even applying that contraption anywhere further confuses the user to even begin to use it. At least for Lightning it is somewhat easy for users to use such that it the swapping, transacting is hidden from them; but you can't call it 'Bitcoin'. So both centralised and decentralised as a mix will exist (Lightning), but certainly not for 'play-to-earn'. Even thinking about applying this layer-2 play-to-earn contraption to games is beyond unnecessary with no advantages whatsoever.

exdsq 4y ago

I’ve had quite a bit of fun playing Gods Unchained which is like Hearthstone but on Ethereum. What does that actually mean? The cards are NFTs so you can buy and sell them. You can also buy card packs with regular micropayments like other TCGs. However because you can sell cards it suddenly becomes a lot more interesting - you can make real money from your legendaries. Not much but I heard earlier in the year people were making $50 a week. The market for high value cards is driven by people wanting to get win streaks for more packs to unlock rare cards to sell, people buy packs from the store because it’s a TCG and that money is in the ecosystem to invest in new card designs/run tournaments/etc… it genuinely works quite nicely and I’m against microtransactions in general because you can get it back out again.

nerdponx 4y ago
I always thought that this was the worst aspect of TCGs! People complain about "pay to win" business models in PC games, but it's 100x worse in dead-tree games. Maybe you spend a few bucks here and there on some kind of premium subscription, whatever, things cost money. But having to physically buy cards always really sucked, especially as a young person without a lot of money, and it was one thing that kept me away from getting more into games like Magic: The Gathering. There was some thrill in collecting, sure, but I would rather have the collecting be an optional side activity, not an essential part of the game. I do see what you are saying about micro transactions though, and about the player's ability to re-capture some of their investment after they are done with the game or ingame item.
- exdsq 4y ago
  Yeah TCG's get really expensive. Not as bad as Warhammer, but definitely up there! My only real point is that it's a use case where I'm going to probably buy packs anyway, but now I can buy specific cards & sell cards I get that I don't want to recoup some money. I think I'm actually $7 positive which is pretty weird, I don't know any other game I've played before where I'm cashflow positive. As another commenter said this is all perfectly possible without NFTs and blockchains and stuff, it's just nice to get web stores, payment processing, and creator fee percentages on resale all for free with very little coding/cost.

Melting_Harps 4y ago

> This week, Take Two Interactive announced that they were acquiring Zynga. Haha, and this is what is being measured? Honestly, delivery is the biggest fruit in gaming in my eye; the space is over saturated with games no one plays and will be 30% less than it was only weeks after it's release. I saw Xbox started a game streaming service that while a bit on the rough side really proves what is left to innovate outside of hardware since the supply shortages with semiconductors make that nearly impossible. It's always been my guess that GME would do a digital Gamefly play with the influx of cash they got from the Stonk BS, but so far it's the same monoliths that keep making the biggest moves: Sony and M$. I think their will be a usecase for microtxs and maybe for EnE encryption, but beyond that this is all ICO/NFT hype looking for a way to perpetuate it's own existence. People played Sarutobi and other tournmanets because it was a way to battle test technology (specifically LN) while having fun and maybe earn some sats, but even it's most devout believers never thought for a second Sony would upend it's business model for using a token on it's own blockchain for the sake of being 'web3' complaint. I'd argue not since Seals with clubs has their ever been an actual use-case for gaming, and it used Bitcoin (often misrepresented as crypto) for a reason: they needed to bypass financial censorship.

sharemywin 4y ago

Sounds like Play to Earn doesn't make sense which seems reasonable, but I imagine "Pay to Win" could work. Some kind of skill game or distributed casino

duskwuff 4y ago
Pay-to-win games have existed without the blockchain for decades. Quite a few Korean and Chinese MMOs used to operate on this principle, for example. It turns out that a game where you have to spend money to be successful, and where spending more money makes you more successful, is not a very fun game.

charcircuit 4y ago

I do believe there is a future in it as it is an easy value add to your game. I believe this is most beneficial to small studios who don't have the resources to develop systems for trading, selling, buying, or whatever for in game itemss. You can instead just plug into an existing ecosystem. I agree with the article that it's better (for the studio) if you have your own (centralized) system for your game, but I feel he is missing the cost of building that out.

mattbrewsbytes 4y ago

One element the author called out at the bottom was a possibility of ICO (coin offering? maybe that includes token offering) where its like a kickstarter where the crypto involvement is for paying back investors somehow via in-game NFTs. Like it could be investors/coin/token holders get some % of in-game purchases like a royalty for backing the game. This concept could apply to any digital business as well with some safeguards built in (escrow or something) to prevent/minimize scams. Actually sounds more like an IPO and "shares" are really NFT's with dividends going to token holders. Could be an interesting model if its all crypto, the volatility is likely the biggest issue then. (I may be using completely incorrect terms, I'm not an expert on these things but it sounds like a plausible implementation)

paxys 4y ago
This model already exists – fund a game (say on Kickstarter) and in exchange get a free copy and/or $X of in-game virtual currency. What does blockchain/crypto/NFT add to this?
- mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
  I guess the only thing I can think of is the ability to sell your “share” of the project and what you get back as a royalty after launch is usable outside the game. Almost all scenarios do end up with “you don’t need crypto/blockchain for that”. Edit to add: there are many examples of software solutions using tech when there are other tech solutions also viable. This doesn’t negate the possible use of another tech just because something else also does it. See NoSQL for instance.

iLoveOncall 4y ago

Because nothing crypto related is the future? Because people want to play for fun not to worry about earning or spending money? Does this really need an article?

t_mann 4y ago

Interesting analysis, especially the economics. Just a few thoughts: - My take was always 'Anything-to-earn' isn't a game, it's a job. And it's at least as old as WoW grinding farms. - A technical point: you actually can implement capital controls on a blockchain. Tokens aren't anything that sits in your wallet, they're more like a spreadsheet, and you have a Turing-complete language at your hand to define the rules of how it's modified. - I don't know Axie Infinity, but I think there were Pokemon/Tamagotchi/MTG-style on-chain games that people played just for fun, before anyone was talking about P2E (I remember the name Crypto Kitties). So it is conceivable to have fun with on-chain games, and if you can sell your game avatars, why not (it's not even uncommon)?

alkonaut 4y ago

Anyone who believes in play to earn or thinks an amalgamation of games and NFTs will happen, probably also believes these “you can use your CoD skin in Battlefield!” type claims. It’s interesting this, that despite being enormously technical and complex topics, it’s almost as if the tendency to be optimistic about them is inversely proportional to general understanding of technology. You don’t hear anyone make a well formulated technical argument as to how all these seemingly impossible things will work. And there is no end to the people handwaving things like the tweet in the article.