Photo by Carl Raw on Unsplash

Video games created the world’s most profitable entertainment industry. With the ever-increasing supply of video game titles released each year reaching the tens of thousands, we’ve certainly come a long way from the days of Pong, Pacman, and Tetris. In spite of such magnitude however, there are still many new territories to chart as we contemplate the future of gaming. Will new strategies and technologies such as the distributed ledger and decentralization radically alter the landscape for developers and consumers alike?

To understand the future, we’ll have to take a look at the past. For the best view, we’ll be standing on the shoulders of giants.

The Pioneering Pixels of Pacman and Pong

Long ago, there was a time when the flicker of cathode rays bouncing across the screen were embraced as the cultural icons of a burgeoning digital era. It was a time before Atari and Apple when the world was drenched in the stimulations and vibrancy of counterculture.

Table Tennis on the Magnavox Odyssey, the monochromatic inspiration behind Atari’s Pong. Courtesy of Ralph Baer.

The first video games, or electronic computer games, as they were called in the 60’s and 70’s, were the brainchildren of hobbyists who emerged out of the psychedelic landscape and found a source of discovery and joy in a novel, electronic medium. These were the first steps of an aspiring industry.

A nostalgic Allan Alcorn, the engineer behind one the earliest hits in video game history, describes his experience developing Pong, “It had to be fun! It was just obvious. There was no market testing, there was no research, there was no business plan, none of that crap.” Source — IGN

That First Stage was just a Tutorial

From there on things began to change. With the realization of the commercial potential of these products, bigger players targeted the nascent market and a certain status quo was molded into existence through the ambitious aims of industry giants. Over the next three decades, Sega, Nintendo, Sony, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and so on, all sought to dominate the leaderboard in an increasingly competitive arena. It wasn’t long before enthusiasts like Alcorn were replaced by the steady influx of compartmentalized, in-house talents: graphic designers, online marketers, software architects, hardware engineers, sound specialists.

To make things worse, tiny, independent studios were gradually being bought out by large corporations in an effort to kill competition and consolidate market share. The industry had gingerly upped the level of difficulty, attempting to close all doors to lone talent seeking to make a mark without the prerequisite industry presence and access to capital.

“I will point out the sad truth. We have pretty much passed the period where hobbyists could put together a game that would have commercial prospect. It’s much more difficult to break in, much less stay in. Right now, in November 1984, I would discourage anyone. If you want to do a game, do it for fun, but don’t try to do game designs to make any money. The odds are so much against the individual that I would hate to wish that heartbreak on anyone.” — Chris Crawford, Compute! Issue 57, 1985

Almost Out of Hearts

Through the 80’s and 90’s, the indie community relied heavily upon large publishers to successfully monetize and distribute their work. With the turn of the century came a sharp increase in production costs, forcing risk-averse distributors to drop smaller studios altogether. The only other viable option was to take the murky route of shareware distribution which severely restricted distribution, and ultimately, the capacity to reach a fruitful audience.

Thankfully, a dwindling species of independent developers escaped sudden death as the Internet came online, giving voice to a community that stood more for passionate endeavors rather than mere profit. The Internet helped revive dormant talent: would-be game designers who had never considered video games as a career option were now part of a communal pursuit to deliver the next virtual paradise and digital work of art.

Hobbyists who sharpened their blades creating custom maps and mods for cult classics such as Quake and Doom, were soon carving new territory, formulating new genres, and taking risks their larger counterparts found unwieldy.

Never Alone, an acclaimed indie title, finds its origins in indigenous mythology, poetry, and story-telling. Courtesy of Upper One Games.

The community flourished through the self-reliance and autonomy garnered through crowdsourcing. Digital distributors such as Valve’s Steam empowered the soloist cowboy to capture a stage once dominated by billionaire behemoths. It was the only chance titles like Minecraft, Super Meat Boy, Hotline Miami, and Cuphead had against the stampeding popularity of Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty.

“Retail has a kind of filter function: people hate to send boxes back, and if the boxes go back you’re wasting all this money. If someone doesn’t download something on Steam, we don’t lose any money. If someone sends back a box, you’re throwing money away. In this new world we can do things that weren’t previously possible.” — Gabe Newell, 2007

Leveling Up

There are enormous possibilities that emerge each time a new technology is unveiled. New innovations have always paved the way to new types of games and subsequently found new audiences and birthed new markets. The Internet gave us the first virtual communities — World of Warcraft, Second Life, Everquest — and inspired the first in-game marketplaces and virtual currencies.

Likewise, smartphones brought us Angry Birds, Pokemon Go, and Candy Crush, resulting in the mushrooming of a $40 billion economy driven solely through the implementation of in-app purchases. But this was only made possible due the ease of access given to downloading and installing mobile applications. Distributors such as the App Store and Play Store were responsible for the rapid expansion of the smartphone market only because they envisioned the fostering and growth of a community of users by encouraging developers to create applications for their respective operating environments.

In short, the Internet enabled global collaborations, reduced the costs of production, marketing, and distribution, and provided developers with an ever-expanding circle of consumers. Ultimately, the digital medium lead to a near-equal playing field for AAA-studios and their independent counterparts alike.

In the virtual world, online distributors might seem like they have little to fear, however, as we shall see, there are plenty of reasons to wonder if centralized markets may actually be on their way out.

Towards an Ultimate Boss Fight?

Ever since the world began to take notice of the emerging possibilities offered by blockchain technology, we’ve seen its implementations in many established industries — law, finance, real-estate, healthcare, government, and so on. To understand why this is the case, we have to understand the fundamental characteristics of the blockchain.

Blockchains are a decentralized ledger — a record of transactions stored by all computers on the specific network. Once a new transaction occurs, it must be verified by a group known as miners. This is what prevents cryptocurrencies from being double-spent. Thus, data stored on a blockchain is incorruptible. Paired with smart-contracts, it’s easy to fathom how the utility of the blockchain may someday lead to its ubiquity.

Keeping these things in mind, it is worthwhile to consider how decentralization is capable of altering the gaming industry.

Similar to how the blockchain made banks inessential for exchanging value, online distributors may become completely unnecessary as peer-to-peer networks enable developers to sell directly to consumers through virtual, instant, and direct payments furnished without the need for an intermediary.

Moreover, blockchains reduce the bureaucracy inherent in many centralized online communities. Publisher policies and regulations may prohibit in-game currencies from being converted into paper money. Further, credits achieved in a particular game might become completely useless outside of it. This is where the blockchain changes everything.

Gaming for life

Decentralization makes life far more practical for players looking for better monetization of their gameplay. Through cryptocurrency or tokens, users are rewarded for completing quests, unlocking achievements, winning tournaments, finding virtual treasure, or simply trading. Users can send each other gifts, receive loans, offer someone payment in return for joining their team, or receive payment for offering their services. These in-game earnings are easily traded over the platform for dollars and cents, making life as a gamer far more lucrative.

In the same way Starcraft and World of Warcraft created professionals out of top players, virtual communities hosted over the blockchain may enable many more to thrive online.

CryptoKitties, widely credited with introducing and popularising gameplay over the blockchain. Courtesy of CryptoKitties.

Decentralization offers more efficiency and better online gameplay as there are minimal latency issues inherent to centralized servers. Further, the integrity of blockchain data provides greater control over one’s online identity. Players are able to record their entire gameplays and save playthroughs to the blockchain to be scored against leaderboards that cannot be manipulated.

The Next Stage is Already Here

Innovations such as Hyperbridge Technology’s Blockhub offer the next generation of digital marketplaces through a robust set of new features and tools. Unlike centralized channels, independent developers using Blockhub will benefit from leveraging the creative potential of its entire user-base, meaning users could be rewarded with tokens for fixing bugs or updating games. It may even make community development of games far more feasible as user contributions will be easier to follow and appreciate.

By deploying cutting-edge technologies such as adaptive user interfaces that provide individual experiences based on user preferences, Blockhub extends the accessibility of the blockchain to novices who have never before used a dapp. However, the platform takes gaming a step further by providing native support for virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality displays and headsets.

In essence, Blockhub is a decentralized computing platform that extends its utility to third-party application developers. The underlying technology enables applications to communicate with one another, share data, and interface in ways that are impossible with older technology.

This is critical to the development of next generation games that may enable the creation of distinct yet inter-operable gaming environments (think Geralt of Rivia taking a trip through the depths of Everspace).

A Chip Off the Old Block

The key here is to provide more and more opportunities to developers and consumers alike. As we’ve seen in the past, when everyone has the incentive to contribute; only when everyone may benefit from progress, will we realize the point of progress.

As we’ve seen with the development of technologies in the past, new frontiers bring new insights, generate new possibilities, and forge new paths for the human imagination. Taking the next step has always necessitated a brave endeavour but the rewards are always greater than the sum of all effort.

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