Game production today is a business at the intersection of the gaming, sports, telecom, and media industries.
Developers are increasingly using blockchain to develop new games, solve current industry problems and increase user loyalty.
Attracting new users to the game through a reward system
A game’s success is largely determined by its popularity and the number of gamers. One way to attract new users is to reward them for their success in the game and other actions.
Blockchain games allow you to reward participants with tokens that can be used in the game or exchanged for real money. Developers are willing to pay not only for game results, but also for the fact of participation, performing certain actions, developing add-ons, and installing software.
Conducting microtransactions in the game via blockchain
Blockchain is often used in free-to-play games: there is no cost to participate, but players buy in-game items, artifacts, or privileges to improve their results.
Many such projects have difficulties with small payments. You can set up payment with regular (fiat) money through providers like PayPal or Apple Pay, but this method has drawbacks. Microtransactions are too expensive, and you also have to deal with financial reporting and taxes. If you use fiat on Google Play and App Store, you have to pay a commission, and sometimes you have to wait up to two months for the transfer of revenue to the rights holders.
Monetization of blockchain games via ICO
Developers can emit their digital currency and sell it not only during the game, but also in advance. This is possible through an ICO (Initial coin offering), a crowdfunding method for attracting investment in new projects or monetizing existing projects.
Those wishing to buy project tokens to use as a means of payment on the platform after its launch or in the hope of making money on resale. If there is not enough money to launch a project, this is a good opportunity to get funding and build a community before the release. People who bought tokens at the ICO are interested in promoting the project. Active users write and talk about it a lot, make posts in social networks, tell their friends, make videos – it helps to promote the game.
Legal trade of in-game items on a single marketplace
In many games, gamers can buy equipment, artifacts, virtual land, or real estate, and the value of virtual items for players is identical to the value of real things. For developers and publishers, selling such items is one way to monetize the game. Gamers, on the other hand, can resell the items they win or buy to each other.
Confirming Value and Protecting Gaming Assets
In the real world, scammers counterfeit items of value by passing off fakes as originals. The same thing happens with in-game assets. In some games, developers authenticate items on the blockchain and allow them to prove their uniqueness, which increases the value of such items. Each item has a unique hash – a cryptographic digital tag that cannot be faked: it is impossible to generate one for any other file. The transfer of ownership from one owner to another is also recorded in the blockchain.
New business model: renting out other people’s computers for games
Most games require an advanced computer or other gadget. Each new generation of games increases the requirements for hardware specifications, but not all players have the ability to constantly upgrade their computers. To solve this problem, there are projects that give gamers the opportunity to rent other people’s “iron”.
Transparent results in eSports and competitive games
There is a lot of money in cybersports: the prize pool in the popular game Dota2 in 2019 exceeded $34 million. But users of any competitive game always doubt the fairness of the game results. In the blockchain it is possible to see the prize fund and the conditions of distribution of winnings: thanks to this, all participants trust each other, and the competition becomes fair.
Fighting piracy and hacking
According to Akamai’s report, from November 2017 to March 2019 there were 12 billion hacking attacks on gaming platforms. A major data theft happened in 2011: a cyberattack at Sony stole data from millions of PlayStation Network users. The damage is estimated at $171 million. Hacking of individual gamers’ accounts happens all the time. For paid games, hackers provide an opportunity to download illegal copies.
Developers are trying to combat this, but they are not always able to stand up to attackers. There is no single center in blockchain that can be hacked: a successful attack requires gaining control of the entire network, and that requires serious resources. The larger the network, the stronger the protection against attacks and data changes. And blockchain is also used for user identification and secure login to games.