There is no denying that the gaming industry is booming. Since it started with the first computer games it has seen huge growth and has come to dwarf other entertainment giants like the movie industry. Following the history, we can easily correlate the growth of the gaming industry to the underlying technology advancements as it opens new potential for game developers to experiment with new tools, not to mention gaming specific hardware. Besides the obvious improvements in processing capabilities of entertainment systems, we have seen interesting technologies like VR, AR, haptics, and now the curious case of blockchain entering the gaming niche. While UI enhancements through VR/AR and haptics are naturally complimenting gameplay, blockchain can look like an odd technology to include in that list.

Blockchain, as many of you will now be already aware, is a distributed ledger of transactions (or anything of value) that is immutable and continually reconciled to ensure transparency and provenance.

Blockchain technology is a valid contender to create a decentralized asset exchange, enabling trading of digital assets among games and among gamers directly. Moreover, the provenance nature of blockchain makes it easier to verify scarcity of the gaming assets, ultimately opening up a new marketplace where developers can monetize their creations properly. Added to this is a fast and secure payment system which facilitates seamless transactions of in-game tokens within the game ecosystem.

NFTS

image by Parker_West@pixabay

Gaming is about fun experiences and addictive gameplay. For this reason, blockchain game developers have to figure out how to create a balance between compelling gameplay and the new payment economics. One effective way to achieve this is to implement NFTs. Why NFTs? Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are blockchain-based digital assets that are either earned or purchased and are unique to the owner. This means that once NFTs are earned, they become the property of the owner and not the game or any other third party. NFTs, therefore, are becoming increasingly valuable in the gaming and collectables space. In fact, many gaming companies have started moving game assets to the blockchain to enhance gameplay and give gamers an opportunity to own and trade these virtual assets freely..

Game logic runs as a smart contract