Video Games Flirting with Crypto
Tags: Bitcoin

Blockchain is a powerful word in IT that has the ability to raise the value of each and every project. Video games are trying to ride the crypto-mania wave as well, but mostly end up as traps to get crypto-fans involved. The one that gets mentioned the most is the decentralized blob of code called CryptoKitties. The breeding of cartoon cats with its static form has no draw and were it just a regular old phone app, no one would give it a second look. But since the kitties are written into a blockchain, people invested hundreds, even thousands of dollars in Ether and brought the Ethereum network to its knees. Similar ‘decentralized apps’ that are built around the pointless collecting of cards/countries/pandas are numerous but they can hardly be called games in the true sense of the word. So, are there any real, successful games out there, either on PCs or phones, that use the highflying block-chaining technology in imaginative ways?

CryptoKitties is NOT a game, just like a dozen other funky ‘decentralized apps’. These are mostly focused on buying/having/selling something.

From Game-Mining to Diagram-Racing

Since the gaming landscape brought on by digital distribution services is so vast, there are countless products with mention of blockchain and crypto. Most of them are simply putting the user’s hardware to work on mining some obscure currency or offer watching ads in exchange for a couple Satoshis. Some turned out to be pure fraud, since they failed to provide a single microcoin to its patient players. The upcoming Allmine, a Jewel Quest type of game of lining up symbols is of a similar kind. It promises some engaging fun via the management of a fairytale town with little dragons and unicorns, all the while mining for ‘Jewelz’, an in-house cryptocurrency in the background. They are going to be sellable, but the majority share is going to be kept by the developer.

AllMine looks like another Jewel Quest clone. The authors are promising more depth and the mining of little gems in the background. So much for the thing being an actual ‘game’ first and foremost.

There are some titles that support microtransactions via crypto-wallets. This has turned out to be profitable for the authors since the users who gained their Bitcoins and Ether with little effort feel easier to part with the cryptocurrencies than actual money. A bonus is that there’s no middlemen involved in the transaction. Dragon’s Tale, a fantasy mass casino game from five years back, catered to the same crowd. The player could test the nimbleness of his or her fingers as well as luck while growing pumpkins, shooting vases, racing with bugs and a dozen other minigames, while betting with MicroBTC. The millionths of Bitcoins are a currency in BitQuest, a fan-made Minecraft spinoff as well. In it, the builders and adventurers pay for land, materials and gear in the same way. These are, however, solitary attempts, since established publishers are still keeping away due to the lack of regulations and general fickleness of the field.

Whoever finds the economy in Minecraft irritating, should join a BitQuest server. An Emerald is worth one Bit or a millionth of a Bitcoin. The hottest trading goods are apples and basic materials and the most expensive building block is quartz, which costs 45 Bits.

Calculating and creative programmers are searching for different ways of attracting crypto-attention. Crypto Rider is an example of lame mobile racing in the hills of — cryptocurrency graphs! The action-oriented role playing game Imperatum has treasure and the difficulty of its enemies tied to the fluctuation of Bitcoin’s value. Bitcoin was the main promotional element in the puzzle game Montecrypto. A couple developers threw together a series of spatial puzzles, average in imagination and extremely tough, the reward for their solution being the address of a wallet with a single coin. In two months the treasure was discovered, with the creators selling more than 100 thousand copies of the game which cost 2€. Somebody is bound to follow their example.

Written into the Blockchain

Two projects that are directly linked to blockchain catch the eye. The indie Huntercoin, spending its fourth year in the niche, looks pathetic at first glance but is the largest blockchain game. The players compete in gathering coins in a vast world, which keeps the coin’s ecosystem running. It’s all a pretty rough experiment that, nevertheless, proves that it’s possible to play around on the blockchain with more than pictures of kitties. Spells of Genesis is another game that, while running on a private server, uses blockchain for the storage of cards. The thing is basically a collecting-battling card game in the vein of Hearthstone. The technology doesn’t bring any real advantages to the table, but the Swiss authors, who paved the idea with their own coin called Bitcrystal, are already planning for the cards to be used in various different games.

At the core of Huntercoin is the collecting of coins via cards, which they call human mining. The difficulty of acquiring them is regulated by bots. It’s an interesting concept with a primitive execution. A community has gathered around the game that is working on a 3D version.

Blockchain is mostly talked about in terms of carving the ownership data of digital goods into stone. These goods are getting more and more important, whether it’s characters, rare equipment, a unique spaceship or a souped-up racecar. Some would find it neat that inventory that’s been bought, worked for or somehow acquired is stored independently of the publisher. This would lead to free trade in virtual goods as well as its transferring between games. Some ideas are playing with the concept of a unified cryptocurrency used in different games. Tap is one such project that promises exchanging into Euros as well as transferring wealth from one game to another. The Slovenian crypto-expert and gamer Simon Karakaš is thinking even broader: “Ownership of a game could be written into blockchain as well. This would enable activated digital games to be sold between users, something that has traditionally been impossible.”

Mobile games in which you battle it out with stacks of cards are numerous. Spells of Genesis, a fantasy offering, wants to stand out by utilizing blockchain. The cards can be accessed outside the game as well, which enables trading and selling.

The question here is whether the big names of the business agree with such a philosophy. The established services — games as well as platforms — have no technical limitations that could keep the players from reselling elements, yet no such functionality is available. Blizzard, for example, does not allow gold and artefacts to be traded for real money, Steam and other markets don’t allow the selling of games that have been played … Eve Online is a rare case where trading is possible. One of the reasons why this isn’t common practice is wanting to have control over the game world. Another claims that a free virtual market would have a negative impact on the economy, in-game as well as outside it. A balance would be hard to strike, gaming would turn into slaving for many a player and lootboxes would be carefully inspected by the gambling commission. Truth be told, such an experiment involving blockchain already exists. The service Dmarket allows for the buying and selling of Counter-Strike and Dota gear.

Limitless Possibilities

It’s hard to predict whether there will come a coin that is going to connect many game worlds into a single economy. Blizzard and Valve already considered it a while ago. While there was talk of an internal currency, not crypto, there was no real attempt at realizing it anyway. Maybe it’s going to come from Ubisoft, who recently claimed that they were searching for advanced usage of the new technology. If one believes in cryptocurrencies, one also believes in some or other way of integrating them into games. If nothing else, the magical term ‘blockchain’ represents in the eyes of many a way of rebelling against the centers of power, making it super attractive. Keeping digital achievements and gear in a public register makes perfect sense, as does paying for DLC and microtransactions with Bitcoins. And the ideas are bound to go further than marking ownership and trading.

Poketoshi is an interesting experiment. It’s a conversion of Pokemon that can be played over the Bitcoin protocol Lightning Network. The latter makes transactions faster and cheaper, making every move in this turn-based game cost a mere 10 Satoshis or 0.06 cents. The project is far from a serious effort and serves more as a unique technology demonstration, but still. Another possible usage of blockchain would be a whole game world, written into a public register. This would enable the game, like Bitcoin, to live according to the choices of the community. Instead of a central developer with godlike powers the crowd would democratically determine the course of the world and the ecosystem would be supported by its own cryptocurrency. We are surely going to see such lands as well as so much more, since the creativity of the developers knows no bounds.