A “made for gaming” cryptocurrency has become the first-ever altcoin to be accepted by a major gaming platform – in what is being described as good news for developers and players alike.

MobileGO (or MGO for short) has been picked up by Xsolla, a company which aims to help content creators launch, monetize, and market titles. The collaboration means the cryptocurrency is now available for use in more than 500 games – with more than 500 million players getting the chance to purchase titles and use the altcoin for in-game purchases.

As part of the deal, developers will also be able to elect to have royalties from Xsolla, paid out to them in MGO, “on a sliding scale percentage of their choice.” Both platforms say this arrangement is in reaction to an increasing trend where digital entrepreneurs are transferring their savings and retirement investments to the blockchain.

Upon adopting the ERC223-compliant token, Aleksandr Agapitov, founder and CEO of Xsolla, said: “Owners of MGO will soon be able to engage in peer-to-peer match play and organize decentralized gaming tournaments in a way never before possible.

“MGO is essentially the Bitcoin of the gaming industry, the most trusted cryptocurrency that Xsolla is making available to more than half a billion gamers today.”

Level up

Xsolla says new games are being added to its platform every day, and claims it now operations in more than 200 countries and territories. MGO will now be presented to users as an option alongside 130 currencies and 700 payment methods.

It is hoped that the introduction of MGO will benefit developers financially and boost their business, as they will be able to slash payment times substantially. Whereas they can be waiting for weeks or months to receive royalties, Xsolla says developers will be able to get paid in MGO in as little as 60 hours, as payment requests are going to be processed three times a week.

MGO says its ultimate goal is to become a universal currency for the 2.6 billion gamers which are estimated to be there worldwide. The company hopes to increase levels of fairness when it comes to tournaments, following several examples where players in eSports events have not received their prize money. Through its currency, it wants to reduce levels of fraud and make it easier for players to receive their funds without having to jump through endless hoops or pay high commission fees.

The company also wants to play a role in removing the centralization from gaming – which can mean that players have no say in the rules, and lose the opportunity to establish tournaments on their own terms. A vivid example of the implications this can have were set out in a recent MGO blog post, which quoted Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin as saying: “I happily played World of Warcraft during 2007 to 2010, but one day Blizzard removed the damage component from my beloved warlock’s Siphon Life spell. I cried myself to sleep, and on that day I realized what horrors centralized services can bring. I soon decided to quit.”

“Event of unprecedented scale”

Both Xsolla and MGO believe that its collaboration could send shock waves through the crypto world – and say its tie-up gives the cryptocurrency “a strong potential of becoming the most adopted alternative coin in the world.”

Xsolla currently acts as a merchant for major gaming brands, including Ubisoft and Twitch. The company says it focuses exclusively on providing tools and services for the gaming community, and it initially launched way back in 2005.