Blockchain Related Games Guide

What is a Decentralized Game?

A decentralized game (DGame) is not operated by any centralized company or individual, instead it operates on its own on a decentralized ledger, for example, on a blockchain. A blockchain is a chain of blocks consisting of data that needs the consensus of the network to add new transactions chronologically. Recorded transaction cannot be modified by anyone including the creator because it will fail the chronological rule of the protocol.

Game tokens

Decentralized games usually operate together with cryptocurrency tokens for asset trading or to incentivize players. Those tokens can be native tokens newly created together with the game, or can be any established cryptocurrency coin on the market, for example, EOS. Since cryptocurrency operates on a blockchain, payments are more secure and transparent. Players need not worry about fraudulent credit and debit cards.

Crypto-collectibles

Assets of a decentralized game are known as crypto-collectibles, they are cryptographically unique and are non-fungible. Crypto-collectibles reside on a decentralized ledger and hence cannot be deleted by anyone since they are not controlled by any centralized group. They will have monetary value if they are rare enough and can be traded with cryptocurrency tokens on a digital market.

Image 1: XPet monsters are adorable game assets that have monetary value.

Centralized Games vs DGames

For most online centralized games, if the company decided to stop the game perhaps because they have earned enough money or that they do not wish to provide further support, players will lose all their game assets and can no longer access to the game. They will not have this problem with decentralized games which will exist for users to play together with their assets permanently.

Centralized games are designed to earn as much money from the players as possible, while DGames usually share the wealth back to the players more for their participations. As of today, the popularity of DGames is growing with most of them operating on the Ethereum, EOS and Tron blockchain.