Blockchain Gaming Applications Scale With These Five Video Games In 2019
There are 2.2 billion gamers in the world and if they can get access to blockchain and crypto it could drive a hundred billion dollar revenue for the global gaming market. To put that in perspective, the movie industry is only 50 billion dollars, which is half of the worth of the gaming industry. This sector is a boiling pot of new technology, and one of the innovations that the focus of game developers is trained on is blockchain.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a game on blockchain?
The first thing that comes to mind is real-time ownership. We have this idea of a nonfungible token which can be owned like any ERC 20 token — just put that in your wallet and you have full control over it. Just like there are exchanges for trading ERC 20 tokens there are platforms for trading non fungible tokens.
Recently there is so much excitement for crypto gaming as well. Tron announced a hundred and million dollar blockchain gaming fund, Ripple took a similar step, and other leading games companies are researching and making headway into how to fit into this whole ecosystem. In many ways, a blockchain video game has to be built from the ground up. Think of how CryptoKitties work. In essence, the developers put these game characters in blockchain and immortalize them — this idea was novel and not seen in any other game until then.
Another advantage of being on blockchain and using crypto for gaming is that the processing fees of value transfers are next to nothing, even when done across borders.
Given that game developers are now actively scaling the applications of blockchain in gaming, the following five video games are to look out for this year:
- 9Lives Arena — this is a fantasy-based PvP 1v1 arena game. Similar to gladiator-style games, you can choose how to train and what weapons to use. Then there is 1v1 esports style combat. The graphics are great, the attention to detail is remarkable. But it is the premise of the game that steals the show. The addition of ranking to fantasy MMO genre with a focus on PvP takes the game to another level. What really sets this apart is the nine lives aspect of it where your character can actually lose everything and die. If you are a fan of MMO PvP, this one to keep your eye on.
- Gods Unchained — This is possibly the most famous of blockchain games that are around at the moment and the project has got immense support. It is a card game similar to Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering Arena in which you have a 1v1 with decks of cards. The layout and the premise of the game are all very familiar, particularly if you have played these Hearthstone games before. However, with what blockchain technology can do with card openings and the trading if cards, this could be a very exciting move, both for blockchain games and the card gaming industry. One of the reasons why Gods Unchained is worth watching is actually outside of the game universe and rather in the business side of the industry. It has the support and funding you typically see in AAA games, and that is far and beyond than what crypto games we are seeing currently have.
- War Of Crypto — Although this is a phone game, it has enough about it to warrant ones attention. The way this game works is that you collect heroes, create a squad, evolve your heroes and battle other players. The game takes huge influences from Pokemon but is closer to another mobile game named Summoners War, just with the crypto being more focused on PvP.
- Hash Rush — A real-time strategy game with a strong focus on cryptocurrency. It is the first real-time strategy game using blockchain technology that seems like a proper full fleshed-out project. The second point to notice is the art form which is important to games such as this. The third reason is very much Hash Rush’s USP — earning cryptocurrency by just playing the game.
- Project Genesis — The AAA graphics is unbelievable, it’s a space shooter mixed with FPS. It’s similar to EVEOnline but with more first-person tendencies to PlanetSide. There isn’t a great deal known but what we have seen till now is excellent.
We can’t use blockchain as a simple database since gaming already has databases designed for video games that are already sharded like the MongoDB and scale horizontally. It even has a free transaction cost. You can’t really compete with that unless you have something different and valuable to offer. Keeping this in mind, software development and blockchain companies such as HashCash Consultants are developing decentralized platforms for video games to enable interoperability of digital assets between games. As it is evident, the value addition of blockchain in gaming it’s about being able to have that ownership, being able to transfer value across games, or simply break items apart using a reserve value system. Given that all these factors need to be built into the game from the ground up, it may be awhile until we get to experience the full impact of blockchain in online video games.
