The first video games, such as the classic Computer Space or Pong, were created between 1971 and 1972 (almost 50 years ago). Since its creation to date, millions of people actively collaborate in the production of renowned titles, just as video games have become part of modern culture to the point that many books and films are based on them (Warcraft, Assassin’s Creed).
According to the Newzoo game 2019 market report, there are now more than 2.5 billion gamers across the world. Combined, they will spend $152.1 billion on games in 2019, representing an increase of +9.6% year on year.
Games and Blockchain
In-game monetization is now the norm in the most profitable games, even more so when subscriptions start to substitute the traditional paid game business model. For publishers, finding the right mix of business models in an extremely dynamic market, with pressure from politics and diverse game enthusiast community, will be the biggest challenge in the coming years.
Part of the solution to this involves the staging of blockchain technology in the video game industry, perhaps in a different way than we have been accustomed to, but initially supporting everything equivalent to monetizing and empowering the player about their performance in games and especially in eSports, a market in frank increase.
It will be increasingly feasible to observe live developments based on blockchain by acquiring tokens with immutable and decentralized technology. This will leave behind the headaches of certain centralized institutions solvency which happened betwee 1980-1990 before the entry of Bitcoin and its underlying technology.
On the other hand, by providing direct opportunities from creator to consumer, blockchain allows game developers to build and distribute their products without the need for costly intermediaries. This also allows you have complete control over the digital right management using tokens and smart contracts.
Platforms That Promise To Solve the Obstacle between Blockchain and Gaming
Undoubtedly, the main obstacle facing the intersection of blockchain technology with the gaming industry is scalability. Solving this blockchain dilemma is essential for all platforms that wish to gain traction within the gaming industry. This will help manage the usefulness of current blockchain-based games.
Centralized games and game platforms have clear advantages over blockchain-based games at this time. However, interesting hybrid solutions like Gods Unchained based on Ethereum can provide some ideas on how centralized and decentralized models can be combined.
In that sense, the South Korean FLETA platform is committed to solving many deficiencies of current gaming with blockchain technology, thanks to its strength which is scalability.
The Asian platform has managed to maintain an average speed of 15,000 TPS on its mainnet, after reaching a maximum peak of 20,000 TPS in its betatestnet, the highest recorded in practice so far by blockchain platform.
According to the company, their games will be the bridge that can connect FLETA to the traditional gaming industry and onboard general gamers without the need for knowledge or experience of blockchain.
For this they have managed to enter their team to a veteran blockchain game developer Parker Park, famous for his games: Donquixote Online and Nekopocha.
The fundamental difference between game titles proposed by third-generation blockchain platforms and other renowned ones such as Gods Unchained, is that they expect their games to be fully decentralized through the native blockchain platform.
While Ethereum created the forefront of blockchain technology games through CryptoKitties, it also showed that scalability was a factor against the growth of decentralized applications in general, and especially video games.
Another important factor that many platforms abuse for their benefit is the cost of fees or GAS in the case of Ethereum or layer 2 solutions such as Matic Network that run on the blockchain proposed by Vitalik Buterin. In this sense, EOS offers free hosting, with the consequence of many spammers in its marketDapps.
For now, with the arrival of third generation blockchain platforms, the solution to these limitations seems to be practically resolved with successful cases such as FLETA that have high scalability and low fees with payment gateways to host Dapps with native currencies of other platforms, also Loom Network, an Ethereum-based blockchain game incubator that has created Relentless, the most popular decentralized application on the network, with more transactions than any blockchain game except for EOS games.
Gods Unchained generated on a hybrid with Ethereum is now the most explicit example that the gaming industry has a new ally to exploit its potential in the coming years. However, cases like Harmony, which launched Pangea, has been a success in its challenge of generating high-performance blockchain games.
The markets for decentralized applications, web 3.0 browsers that allow navigation through the thousands of titles that host Tron, EOS and Ethereum in a simpler and more interactive way, are only open mouth for what we will witness in the coming months.
The race to dominate the gaming space with blockchain technology currently has tough competitors struggling to gain the attention of both the experienced developer and professional players who take full advantage of the technological benefits of the blockchain.
TOP 3 Gaming with Blockchain Technology.
1.-Gods Unchained by Fuel Bros in Ethereum Blockchain
2.- Age of Rust by SpacePirate Games in Enjin Coin Blockchain (for launch)
3.- Unikoin Gold by Unikrn Bermuda Ltd in Ethereum Blockchain
