Making Sense of Blockchain Gaming

A summary of my learnings from My Crypto Heroes and fellow blockchain game developers

The MCH Meetup in NYC after NFT.NYC, where we had a very insightful panel led my Marguerite deCourcelle, CEO of Blockade Games, maker of Neon District.

I just returned from ETH Denver and NFT.NYC where I had lots of discussions about why we, as an industry, decided to build a game on the blockchain. In short: There are a few things that blockchain games can do, which “normal” games simply can’t do.

This post is highly inspired by the panel we had during the MCH meetup.

It should give a good overview of the current state of blockchain gaming, what is working, and what we need to improve moving forward.

The “Obvious” Things

Gaming and NFTs

Blockchain Games use the blockchain to store individual assets, called NFTs.

Why this is exciting: When I was a teenager, I used to play a ton of Guild Wars, while trading with in-game items and game accounts on eBay. Sometimes, I got scammed on eBay due to cash backs on PayPal or asynchronous trades (items first, payment last). That was unfortunately normal.

Today, game asset NFTs, secured by the blockchain, allow me to freely trade my game assets without the worry that I’d receive the money or the item.

Some Feedback I’ve received on this: Counter argument:

Games could build their own scam-free peer to peer market, like we’ve seen with CS:GO (Skins) or Diablo 3 (Auction House). Answer:

This is possible, however, having the item on the blockchain allows users to make use of all other Ethereum based products that are built on top of it. In other words: I don’t need to build my own peer 2 peer trading backend and can use OpenSea instead. This is quicker, has less overhead for game developers, and is probably more secure overall.

The Crossover of Gaming and Finance

Blockchain games are “money games” by nature and should be treated as such. You ask why? Game assets are designed to hold value, which can be converted into FIAT that can be spent in the “real world”. The blockchain is used to secure the value of those assets and allows users to transfer them in and out of the game.

Most blockchain gamers play because of the money aspect. They enjoy playing a game that allows you to invest your money strategically, with a gameplay of generating returns if you outperform your opponents.

The average blockchain gamer also likes poker, used to trade in MMOs, or at least trades with crypto or stocks. So naturally, they enjoy the intersection of finance and gaming. Some even look at blockchain games as heavily gamified savings accounts.

To go even one step further, we built DeFi Game during the ETH Denver hackathon, that uses ERC721 Crypto Kitties, converts them into ERC20 Wrapped Kitties and turns it into ERC-20 DAI for the prize money. A lot of people liked the idea, which shows that the crossover of gaming and finance is something that gets people excited.

Composability

Since NFTs are built on the ERC721 or ERC1155 standard, they can be used within other games and platforms.

If you comply to the above-mentioned standards for your game assets, you’ll be able to automatically make use of platforms like OpenSea. You can also enable asset conversion into a game asset of another game, if that game also complies to the ERC721 / 1155 standards.

If you build your game on Ethereum, you can use every Ethereum-based service, for example 3Box for your player identity or the ERC-20 token DAI as rewards for your tournaments.

You could even sell NFTs in DAI, turn that into CHAI and use that accrued interest for tournament winnings. Some people call it “money Lego” and similar to Lego, the possibilities are endless.