Games on the blockchain move into a new era
By: Robert Hoogendoorn
Tags: Tokenization, Blockchain Technology, Blockchain, Ethereum, Blockchain Gaming

Gods Unchained, by Immutable — (October 2019)

For two years gaming on the blockchain was nothing more than creating new tokens and trading them. Two years ago Cryptokitties was the most popular decentralized game in crypto. Ever since that time blockchain games have been stuck at breeding and trading collectible items. Two years later blockchain games have finally evolved. Games provide actual gameplay, network can handle serious amounts of player action and these new games just look so much better. Gods Unchained is one of the biggest blockchain games of the moment, and its leading blockchain games into a new era.

It all started with Cryptokitties

When developer Axiom Zen launched Cryptokitties in October 2017, it was just a fun experiment with early blockchain technology. The crypto industry was at the beginning of an enormous bull run and every day the value jumped up a few percent. Cryptokitties users breed and trade unique digital kittens. The game became way too popular for something that was meant as a fun experiment.

The game became a hype, and some kittens were sold for prices into six figures. A genesis kitten was sold for 117 thousand dollars, while many other cats were also sold at car values. This is the news that hit mainstream media, but at the same time the increased hype came with even more traffic.

Ethereum couldn’t handle the kitties

By December there were so many transactions, that the game was clogging the entire Ethereum network. On December 4th Cryptokitties was responsible for almost 12 percent of all transactions on the Ethereum network. The amount of pending transactions on the network had multiplied almost ten times within just a few days. It caused a fear that the entire Ethereum blockchain would fail, even before it could fully live up to its promise.

The Cryptokitties team worked with Metamask and other Ethereum developers to come up with quick solutions for scaling the game. Miners had already increased their fees, and as a result the birthing fee for a kitten doubled to 0.002 ETH. At the same time the developers tried to communicate more clearly about waiting times, network congestion and transaction fees. It became very clear that scale was the major challenge for Ethereum developers, if they ever wanted to reach true mainstream adoption.

Sending a few ETH, BTC or LTC is fun and can provide traders some good revenue. But trading is not the same as mainstream adoption. When millions of people need to pay their groceries, phone bills and cinema tickets using cryptocurrencies, the network needs to be able to deal with millions of transactions per minute. Decentralized platforms need to deliver the speed and scale from the most popular internet applications. Scaling solutions are a driving force towards mainstream adoption of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency payments.

Cryptokitties VS Gods Unchained

Cryptokitties clogged the Ethereum network with its 4.7 million transactions. Game studio Immutable transferred six million cards in just three days, but the Ethereum network wasn’t impressed. Nobody noticed that the blockchain has seen more digital collectibles transferred in history. Fees didn’t go up. Waiting times didn’t increase. The blockchain games revolution set in motion by Gods Unchained started unnoticed. Only those who dive into blockchain analytics would’ve witnessed these record breaking transactions.

These were possible because of Immutable putting multiple token transfers into one batch. As a result they minted six million cards and transferred them to their owners, without putting pressure on the blockchain. The only moment Gods Unchained caused slight troubles, was went it launched its open marketplace on November 22nd. According to Coin Metrics some blocks required $30 of fees. After a few hours things went back to regular sub $1 levels.

Gamers can trade Gods Unchained cards on the in-game marketplace and on OpenSea. Ever since the marketplace opened, over 52 thousand cards have been sold. The most expensive cards go for over $1000, while most cards are just a few dollars. In less than a week the trading card game had over 2100 ETH in trading volume. As a result it has the number one spot on the OpenSea marketplace. The biggest sale on the marketplace is a mythic card worth 31 thousand dollars!

Even though the Ethereum blockchain still has lots of work to do when it comes to scaling, it’s moving in the right direction. Gods Unchained is already a bigger product than Cryptokitties ever was, even though its user base is much smaller. Currently approximately ten thousand addresses own Gods Unchained cards, while almost ninety thousand addresses have kitties.

Gods Unchained just launched. Immutable wants to attract millions of gamers, while currently attracting just a few thousand. The true blockchain revolution for Gods Unchained hasn’t even started yet. However, to deal with millions of users something will need to change.