As long as humans have existed, games, in some form have also existed.

Not only have games been an integral part of every culture — gaming has been one of the oldest forms of human social interaction.

In short, Games are as ancient as cavemen.

Even more fascinating is how games are able to capture the ideas and worldviews of different cultures and pass them on to future generations.

It’s a snapshot frozen in time — the video game version of a mosquito trapped in a glob of Amber like in Jurassic Park.

But…

There are major problems with the economics of traditional video games.

For example, with traditional games:

The game creator (or corporation) could go out of business leaving the game stranded in a locked, closed source safe. If the game goes away, you are also going to lose the hundreds of hours of time you invested in developing your characters and advancing levels. If the game creators decide to take the game in a different direction against your wishes, you have no recourse. If you want to improve or remix the game, you need the game creators permission to do so. Any centralized authority could ban you from the game or take away your game servers at their whim without caring about you, the player. You don’t actually “own” any of the digital assets in the game that you have invested your hard earned money or time in.

This is not mere conjecture.

It has happened (and will happen) over and over again.

For example, Asheron’s Call, a long running online RPG closed its doors after 12 years — leaving its most loyal players stranded.

If Asheron’s Call was on the Blockchain, the community could have forked the data, and STILL keep playing.

What if I told you that in the future — Blockchain Games can not only solve ALL of those problems — but (from an infrastructure standpoint) are actually SUPERIOR to any game that has ever existed up until now?

Would you believe me or would you look at me with skepticism?

Since the gaming sector is expected to become a $143 billion global industry by 2020 — IF I am correct, there will be huge implications.

…and if you are lucky enough to read this post early enough, you could potentially capitalize on the upcoming disruptions in gaming.

...and before I tell you about those disruptions, we must first refresh our minds with some historical highlights in the world of gaming.

I am going to take you wayyyy back, then bring you full circle to the present moment where the nascent world of Blockchain Games are about to take over the globe.

…and, by the time you are done reading this, you’ll be in the 0.000001% of people in the world that will know what the future will hold for Games.

But before we get to the future, let’s take a look at our past.

The Surprising History That Took Us From Ankle Bones to Blockchain Nodes

Wayyyy back in the day — during the ancient times, while many people instinctively wanted to play games, they did not have access to cool toys like PlayStations or Computers like you and I.

So, what did pre-historic humans do to quench their thirst for playing games?

They created ancient gaming tools with bone, specifically, from the Talus Bone — which is a group of foot bones found in the lower part of the ankle joint.

Ancient game pieces (like in Kuncklebones and Dice games) made with Talus Bone can be found all over the world to this day.

The Ancient game of Knuckle Bones — where game pieces were made with the ankle of sheep or goat.

Crazy huh?

If prehistoric-humans had Television and were binge watching Mr. Robot — they wouldn’t have time to be THAT creative.

The thing is…

Our DNA is literally wired to play games — so much so that we are willing to use all of our resources and creativity to improvise until we have something entertaining on our hands.

So, next time you hear some Young’un whine about how their PlayStation is broken, smack em on the head and tell em’ about Talus Bone.

Then exclaim: “You ungrateful little punk! Your ancestors sacrificed their ankles to play games like this!”

No joke.

Your ancestors were THAT dedicated to playing games.

…and with decentralized Blockchain Technology (along with the distribution power of the Internet) our dedication to creating, playing and sharing games will be exponentially bigger in the future.

Only — Instead of Talus Bone, future Blockchain Games will be built on platforms like Loom Network.

…and much like Talus Bone, all the Blockchain technologies that are being built today are STILL in their nascent, primitive state.

History DOESN’T repeat, but it DOES rhyme.

If hind-sight is 20/20, future-sight is legally blind — meaning, no one REALLY knows how the future will ACTUALLY unfold.

But, while history does not exactly repeat, it DOES rhyme…

…and in order to understand HOW it will rhyme, it is important that we understand a bit of history.

ESPECIALLY how it relates to Blockchain games.

Let’s start with the classic game of Pinball…

Pinball played a major roll in the evolution of video games

You can’t say that video games grew out of pinball, but you can assume that video games wouldn’t have happened without it. It’s like bicycles and the automobile. One industry leads to the other and then they exist side-by-side. But you had to have bicycles to one day have motor cars. — Steven Baxter, former producer of CNN Computer Connection

Waayy back in the day In….

1931: David Gottlieb (the Henry Ford of Pinball) invents Baffle Ball.

1942: New York Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia bans Pinball and orders city police to make Prohibition-style pinball raids and seizures its ‘top priority’. The ban continued for over 30+ years in New York and in surrounding counties.

Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia checks over pinballs confiscated by the police department in February 1942 (Video)

1981: President of Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos bans video games and gives arcade owners two weeks to destroy their machines. According to Time Magazine, Americans dropped 20 Billion dollars of quarters into video games and players spent 75,000 man-years JUST this year. The video game industry earns more money than Casinos, the Movie Industry, Major League basketball, and football COMBINED. Oh, and Shigeru Miyamoto creates Donkey Kong. Arguably Arcade’s biggest year.

1993: id Software releases DOOM. Sets standard for shareware, multiplayer 3D first person shooters. Becomes a PC Game phenomenon.

2000–2006: Sony introduces PlayStation 2. Nintendo introduces GameCube. Microsoft releases Xbox, and Nintendo releases the Wii.

This is where things get interesting (i.e: Paradigm Shifting) for the future of games….

2009: Satoshi Nakamoto releases the first version of Bitcoin.

2013: Vitalik Buterin describes Ethereum in a whitepaper in Bitcoin Magazine.

2015: Ethereum is released. Many solutions are proposed, but no one has implemented a solution for scaling.

2018: Loom Network releases operational prototypes, solving Ethereum scaling for Blockchain Games and Social Apps using DAppChains.

2019 and onward: We’ll see 😉

Now, the question is, can people like Ferdinand Marcos and Mayor LaGuardia ban Blockchain Games like they did with pinball and arcade games? 🤔

What Are The Startling Benefits of Blockchain Games You Would NEVER Guess?

So, for starters, let me give you the MOST OBVIOUS reasons:

1.) Cannot Be Shut Down — Corporations go out of business, get bought out or those in charge can end up ruining the game. This has happened over and over again throughout history. With blockchain games, it is impossible for any central authority to shut the game down, including the game’s original creator. As long as there is interest, the game will live in the blockchain for eternity.

I happily played World of Warcraft during 2007–2010, 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. — Vitalik Buterin, Creator of Ethereum

2.) Forkable & Democratic — Hypothetically, if the players are not happy with the game for whatever reason, they can literally fork away from the original game and go in their own direction.

Which means, Blockchain games bring a level of freedom and democracy that puts you, the player, in control. Read this blog post to get an even better understanding of the benefits of forkability.

3.) Inter-game + Inter-Blockchain Operability — This is arguably one of the coolest features of Blockchain based games. Since your gameplay state and character data are permanently saved on the blockchain, other (completely unrelated) games can let you use your existing characters, items, and “karma” in different worlds.

This also allows for persistent game worlds — meaning, any game can borrow another game’s characters and world data.

Which means, it would be possible to have persistent, and expansive game worlds that no central party owns.

You could build a new game, but use assets of an existing game or tap into large communities of players who could instantly jump into your game world with their existing characters.

This lends itself to some really interesting new possibilities — imagine a World of Warcraft type game, where players play in towns and worlds created by players of totally different MineCraft or Sim-City-like game(s).

….Or two sets of players playing entirely different games — but they could be playing in the same game-world where their actions have real effects on the other game through decentralized shared data.

(Go ahead, take a moment and let that settle in — I’ll wait)

4.) True Ownership of Digital Assets — On YouTube, Gaming has more followers than news, movies and education combined.¹ Worldwide, there are hundreds of millions of gamers investing a lot of time (which is non-renewable) and money into their gaming assets.

Here’s the problem: They could easily lose all of their hard work for any number of reasons including: getting banned from the game, the company going out of business, OR quitting the game but not being able to recoup the hundreds of dollars they invested into paid items and upgrades.

With Blockchain games, all of the hours and effort you have invested into your characters and digital assets are YOURS FOREVER and no one can take them away from you — including the very creators of the game.

It doesn’t matter if you get banned or if the game forked into a different branch — your karma, points, and anything else you have earned will always be yours in perpetuity.

Since all of your hard-work is permanently preserved on the Blockchain and you actually own it, it is possible for you to even sell your digital assets at a profit to a buyer — OR you could even start game-play with a different game using your existing character(s) on a completely different Blockchain.

With Blockchain games, you’ll own your digital assets and no one will be able to take them away from you.

5.) Blockchain Games come with built-in economies —With in-game assets being represented by non-fungible ERC721 tokens, users will be able to buy and sell game items on the blockchain.

For example — If you’re missing a specific card to build a deck in your collectible card game, you can simply buy that card from a trading / auction marketplace that runs on the Blockchain.

Think Ebay for digital assets where payment is accepted in ERC20 tokens.

Also…

Not everyone is a gamer, and since there are plenty of speculators in this space, Blockchain Games are also going to have a built-in speculative element².

For example, if a certain developer has a track record of building incredible Blockchain Games, one could assume that the characters and assets in that game will appreciate in value over time.

Based on this assumption, many folks would simply purchase gameplay assets for the purpose of HODLing them long term.

6.) Provable Scarcity — there are many games that contain “rare” game assets. Since these are rare and scarce, the value tends to go up.

The problem is, how do you REALLY know if they are scarce when you don’t have access to the source code?

Hint: You don’t.

Not only that, if you a expend a ton of effort and energy obtaining any “rare” items only to lose them because the developers changed their mind or the game shut down — that would suck. Yet, it happens ALL the time with traditional games.

If the game ran on Blockchain, that’s yesterday’s news.

One of the biggest problems with games is that game assets, such as gold, armor, and rare items are not fixed in supply. Even when they are rare, code changes and bugs could alter this rarity at any moment. In Diablo2 there was a valuable item called a “Stone of Jordan” that was used as currency because it was rare. However, someone found an item duplication bug and created tons of them. Developers can also simply change the algorithm that creates these items, and markets can be destroyed in moments. — Matthew Campbell, Co-Founder of Loom Network

Instead of trusting a centralized game studio, you can be sure that rare game assets are ACTUALLY RARE and won’t be diluted in supply due to code changes or other reasons.