Blockchain Use Cases: Gaming

The gaming industry nowadays

It is a well-known fact that a centralized model can be found in a great number of online games. What does it mean? The game administrators are responsible for control of all the data that are kept on a server. 

What does this information include?

It consists, firstly, of account data alongside with the server history. It shows what records and stores all events and in-game assets, which are collected by the players. It can be items in the game, virtual money and so on. Unfortunately, there can be the following vulnerabilities. For instance:

1. It can't be a fair ban of accounts;
2. It can be a server malfunction because of some technical problems;
3. Lack of transparency concerning game mechanics and rates occurs;
4. Additionaly, there can be system infiltration done by hackers;
5. Moreover, the game can shut down;
6. And last but not least, manipulation of the game economy by developers and administrators also can take place.

It is up to you to decide if it is OK to let games companies hold all the power (and your private data, too). Fine news: blockchain technology can prevent and stop a bigger part of the issues.

Principles of work

A blockchain-based system is a distributed database. Consequently, its main function is to verify and prove all digital information. It can be game events history along with tokenized assets and digital items. In this case, the power from game creators will be transferred to players of this game.

Moreover, players will get real control over their accounts and assets (digital ones). Players become able to trade the assets whenever they want. It is wonderful that in order to advance and develop any game, we have many various ways.

Decentralized marketplace

Gaming companies can manipulate the drop rate and the economy of the games they create. Moreover, they are able lock or bind in-game items. It will make them untradable.

Compared to it, games based on top of blockchain networks can help to create decentralized marketplaces. It helps to avoid the need for trust amongst players, alongside with the providing censorship resistance. All players are able to freely buy, sell, and trade their in-game assets on a peer-to-peer basis.

Streamlining payments

Do you want to minimize fees and boost financial transactions? Look at the Blockchain and smart contracts! They are so powerful regarding this aim. They will fulfill it at once. They are able to do all types of payments, not only for trades between gamers (peer-to-peer) but also between gamers and developers.

Ground for fair playing 

Blockchain makes the creation of open-source, shared, as well as transparent gaming servers possible. In these circumstances, the gaming mechanics can only be changed if the biggest part of the network votes for these changes. Additionally, the distributed blockchain will not allow hackers to disrupt the game for the reason that there is not a point of failure.

Gaming with no limit

If we are speaking about the game that exists on a centralized server, it means that the developers of the game are able to stop this project or simply close the game down whenever they want. In case when we deal with blockchain, players can easily go on playing their favorite game even if the developers of the game leave the project.

Several limitations

Here you can see some examples of limitations that sometimes blockchain technology creates for the gaming sphere. They should be overcome in the near future. Let’s hope for it!

•  It is a competition: the matter is that blockchain games, as a rule, are usually made by not big, independent groups (for instance, indie games). It will be difficult to win against some big game companies and survive in the competition, unfortunately.
• It is scalability: it is a fact that blockchains are not so fast as centralized networks. It can prevent games from being adopted on a global market.
• It is centralization: not all blockchain-based games are fully decentralized. Several of them, of course, use ERC-721 and any other blockchain tokens. Nevertheless, they run on a centralized server.
• It can be simple: we can find some exceptions from this rule, but a lot of blockchain games cannot attract players because the latter appreciate high-quality graphics or elaborate gaming experience.
• There is a lack of adoption: though there are hundreds of blockchain games available, the demand is still not high. Most games have few gamers, unfortunately.
• Some barriers to entry: you know, it is very difficult to raise funds in order to begin and keep a blockchain game. Lack of adoption and scalability issues can limit the work of developers.

Do not be very worried because some teams offer various methods to solve these issues. They do research and analyze the worlds of Ethereum Plasma, Lightning Network, Layer 2 and so on.  

Several blockchain games

Of course, the world of blockchain gaming is so new and exciting! It goes without saying that it differs from the classical gaming industry in a great way. The biggest difference is that the world of blockchain gaming is very small now. Nevertheless, we can find several hundreds of DApps and games based on top of blockchain networks.

We can say that a lot of decentralized apps and gaming platforms functionate on the basis of the Ethereum blockchain (examples are Enjin and Loom). Here you will see some games that are based on blockchain. 

Conclusion

Nowadays they say that the gaming world will be closely connected with blockchain technology. It is advancing and shows great potential. With the help of it, it becomes possible to improve conditions for players and administrators. Do not forget about developers, either.  It will give the chances of transparency, decentralization, as well as interoperability. 

If you are going to get more free actions, it is advisable to think of blockchain as a fighter against limitations and unfairs bans. Take care!