What will happen when HTML5 technology meets blockchain technology? What kind of revolution will the game industry face?

By Tencent 腾讯科技

Introduction:

Since the beginning of 2018, blockchain has become a hot topic thanks to the surge of the Shenzhen A-Share market. However, in the face of the recent extended limit of concept stocks, many people who were previously hoping to enter the blockchain market now have cold feet.

Why is the blockchain market so heated? Is it a new opportunity or a bubble waiting to burst? What do insiders think of it all?

To this end, Blockchain Inspectors (区块链探长) have invited several industry experts to share their stories about the ups and downs of the industry, share their opinions, and give future industry rookies some advice.

Today’s guest is Peter Huang, founder of Egretia. The following is organized according to an interview with Huang.

Foreword:

From stand-alone to web-based, from web-based to page-based,and from page-based to mobile, every wave of platform change has brought great opportunity to the game industry. The mobile game industry is currently becoming more and more competitive. In the “Red Sea Era” where competition in the mobile game industry has become increasingly fierce and resources have become more concentrated, HTML5 technology is an emerging industry that has created brand-new space for mobile game developers. This is attributed to the unique advantages of HTML5 technology such as powerful cross-platform capabilities, click-to-play convenience, virus propagation characteristics, and continuous improvement of engines and tools.

However, despite the rapid development of HTML5 games, there are many problems. Its shortcomings include lack of transparency in the probability of encountering a specific prop and difficulty in circulating virtual game assets among games. Blockchain technology is decentralized, secure, transparent, non-destructive, and traceable. These features make blockchain technology naturally suited to solve problems within the HTML5 industry.

The Egretia platform aims to address the fundamental shortcomings of the HTML5 industry by creating the world’s first complete HTML5 blockchain development workflow and helping developers create blockchain applications.

Egretia: Bringing 200,000 Developers and 1 Billion Mobile Devices To the Blockchain World

Egretia, the world’s first HTML5 blockchain platform, is partnering with Egret Technology to bring Egret Technology’s existing 200,000 developers and more than 1 billion mobile devices to the blockchain world.

Peter Huang, the founder of Egretia, said, “Egretia has a well-developed tool flow that includes fourteen tools. What Egretia wants to do is to integrate existing tools and blockchain technology to create a blockchain world for HTML5. This will allow developers to quickly create blockchain games. For these developers, integrating with blockchain technology would be as easy as integrating with a payment interface or a channel.”

Egretia began developing in the middle of last year. At present, it plans to release test blockchains and testing tools at the end of the second quarter.

Focusing on Technology Development and Promoting Application

When describing the reasoning for creating the HTML5 blockchain platform, Egretia, Huang listed out three primary reasons:

1. His judgment of technology development trends.

According to Huang, the decision to work with blockchain technology was similar to his decision to work on HTML5 a few years ago — both were made based on his judgment of the future trend of technology. As early as 2013 and 2014, Huang and his team began work on HTML5 technology with faith in its future trend projection based on the network environment at the time, the support level of hardware and software devices, and HTML5.

Huang say that he began work on blockchain technology with the belief that blockchain would be the direction for future long-term development.

He said,“We’re working on tool engines, so why don’t we make them to support new technologies?”

2. Putting applications into practical use is the basis for the value of technology.

When we look back at the development process of HTML5 technology, we realize that in order for technology to fully realize its value, we have to promote applications for practical use. Huang thinks that initially HTMLS games were very basic, but now they are diverse and sophisticated. They have evolved from small to large, from quantitative to qualitative. And the same goes for blockchain as well. As technology matures, the market will see a huge demand for DApp, and getting new applications on the market will be a major concern for developers.

“Ultimately, technology needs to be put into practical scenarios and environments. Regardless if it is to meet market demand or to expand application scenarios, it is essential for the technology to interact with real-life users. For example, in order to make tokens circulate, it is not enough for them to only circulate in token exchanges. They have to reach a majority of target users,” says Huang.

3. Applications can be ready to hit the market when there is a large number of developers helping to construct the ecology.

Huang continued: “If you want applications to quickly hit the market, we have to attract and motivate developers and let them work on related applications on their own initiative.” He knows that if you want developers to use a specific set of tools then the key is the effectiveness of the tool set and if the tool set will help developers work more efficiently. The reason that Egretia is integrating Egret Technology’s existing tools with blockchain technology is that their set of existing tools is easy to use and has already attracted a large group of users.

Further, developers are concerned about the efficiency of development because efficiency affects the cost. The shorter the development time, the better it is to control the risk of the project. Thus, the Egretia platform will provide a complete and fast workflow to help developers quickly develop applications.

Developing Egretia Public Blockchain to Target the Game Industry

It is a huge challenge for a team to develop an independent, public blockchain. The team needs to have experience in doing parallel processing and distributed architecture, and they also have to consider issues of blockchain security. So why did Egretia decide to build its own independent, public blockchain?

Huang expressed that the reason Egretia developed its own public blockchain is that, in light of unique features of the game industry, blockchain needed some updating and required som e iterations to be done. Although Ethereum is a very mature and stable public blockchain, it is not directed at the vertical industry. Ethereum cannot meet needs of the game industry.

“Egretia will gradually improve its public blockchain according to the needs of game industry. In addition, Egretia’s vision isn’t limited to only supporting its own blockchain. During the development process, if there are other public blockchains released that are suitable for the game industry, Egretia would embrace them too,” says Huang.

Build an Ecosystem Using Tokens as Motivation

When asked why Tokens are necessary, Huang explained that he wanted to use tokens to build an ecosystem. He says: “What is the circulation system we want to create? Not only is it for developers, but we can reward tool creators and users alike using tokens.”

For developers, if there is a promising project, Egretia can us Tokens to support and invest in the developers. And when developers finish producing quality content they can receive tokens. Further, developers can get tokens that are paid out by users, and the tokens they receive could then be used for advertisement or for purchasing plug-ins. Developers can also publish their own tokens based on platforms like Ethereum.

For tool developers, if they can provide game developers with a quality plug-in to increase the efficiency of development, then Egretia would reward them with tokens.

For users, if they click on advertisements in the game, they would be rewarded with tokens as well, and could then use these tokens to purchase props.

Egretia wants to use Token to create an ecosystem between developers and users and also between developers and tool creators. When the ecosystem becomes more prosperous, Tokens will begin to circulate on the Egretia platform, thus creating a positive cycle between developers, tool creators, and users.

A Complete Blockchain Game Consists of Three Aspects.

Peter claimed: “a complete blockchain game should consist of three aspects: 1) core rules in the chain; 2) core assets in the chain; and, 3) Tokens as the supported means of payment.”

“Nowadays, most game rules are set by game operators, and although the rules are public, many players consider the rules to be unfair. Game operators might organize a few events to encourage players to buy, buy, buy, but after players purchase the props, the value of the props depreciates,” says Huang. Huang believes that in blockchain, rules are written on smart contracts and cannot be tampered with, thereby ensuring players’ full autonomy of the game and ultimately making the game more fair.

In blockchain games like Crypto Kitties, each cat is unique which, in turn, increases the value of each cat. The more time a player spends playing the game, the more valuable that player’s assets become. When the core assets are written on the blockchain, for example, skins and props that can be used in a game like Crypto Kitties, the value of these core assets is preserved.

In the past, many online games had the problem of transaction risk and asset devaluation. However, in blockchain games, since the value recognized by the players is constantly being written on the blockchain, players can preserve the value of their assets when conducting transactions. Huang believes that this can protect players’ accumulated value throughout the life cycle of the game and, in turn, increase player loyalty.

Blockchain is the Future, But it Cannot Be Accomplished Overnight

When talking about the outlook of blockchain’s future development, Huang says: “blockchain is the way of the future, but people should not expect for everything to be accomplished overnight. Don’t rush the industry to develop. Just as the game industry developed from web games to mobile games to HTML5 games, people should look at the blockchain industry with a peace of mind instead of trying to force change.”

With the iteration of games, content will gradually become more enriched, and the entire ecology will mature. According to Huang, looking at the development of HTML5 games one can see how they have undergone a tremendous evolution from very simple to much more diverse and complex. “For HTML5 in the beginning, good developers were not yet engaged, but over time more and more outstanding teams have entered the industry. We now realize that games like this can be created.”

When it comes to the future development of blockchain games, Huang believes that it is the same as HTML5 games — it will continue to iterate and improve over time.” “When we look at Crypto Kitties, the graphics aren’t great and the game logic is simple. But as time goes by, there will be more and more developers joining the industry, and game content will become increasingly rich and diverse.”

From web games to mobile games to HTML5 games, each iteration has promoted the development of game content and the improvement of the industry’s ecosystem. Blockchain technology is the major development trend of the future. As blockchain technology matures, there will be a higher demand in the market for DApp. Nowadays, there are many projects focused on blockchain that need to get their applications up and running as soon as possible. This is Egretia’s opinion about the future market. Egretia’s founder, Peter Huang, expressed his opinion that the development of one industry does not happen overnight, so industry development should not be rushed. As long as more quality teams and developers are joining the industry, the industry will definitely see progress in development.