First — the most important question.

…Why blockchain?

Funnily enough, the centralization of gaming was part of the inspiration for Ethereum itself. Vitalik Buterin, one of its founders (and a much wiser person than I) said:

“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.”

… And the narrative has continued.

Players routinely spend money and time on powerful in-game items only to have them nerfed, with no refunds.

Two months ago, Valve suddenly trade-locked CS:GO skins, decimating many players’ livelihoods.

What I lost. But my armor wasn’t trimmed.

And when I was twelve, I was banned on Runescape, losing my hard-won full-rune set.

$50 billion was traded through digital marketplaces for video game items in 2018. It’s projected to triple by 2022. And in almost every single one of these games, players are buying items, skins and upgrades which they don’t truly own.

They can’t trade them for real money. (If they can, it’s in a second-hand market regulated by games companies that can be restricted on a whim).

They can’t use them on any other platforms. Ownership is locked to usage within a specific game made by that company.

They can be nerfed at anytime, without refunds or explanation. Companies often do this to up-sell a new DLC to players who are already heavily invested. There are no decentralized governance mechanisms regulating this.

Even if a company claims an item is rare, there’s no real way to prove that won’t change in the future.

Developers are the central bank in games, and right now they’re operating with impunity.

That’s why we’ve built Gods Unchained on top of the Ethereum blockchain — to bring transparency into the opaque world of in-game economies.