Table of Contents

• The gaming industry today
• How does it work?
• How does blockchain affect the gaming world?
  • Real ownership
  • Decentralized market
  • Simplified payment process
  • Game Multiverse
  • Fair gaming environment
  • Unlimited gaming
• Limitations
• Blockchain Game Example
• Summary

The blockchain ecosystem is growing at a rapid pace, expanding its audience every day. Although blockchain technology is mainly used in cryptocurrency networks, it can also provide innovative solutions for many industries.

Binance Academy has produced numerous articles discussing blockchain use cases. Notable industry areas include healthcare, governance, supply chain, IoT, and philanthropy.

But did you know that blockchain technology is also changing the gaming industry.

Today's gaming industry

Today, the vast majority of online games adopt a centralized model . In this mode, all relevant data is stored on a server that is fully controlled by the game administrator.

Generally speaking, this type of data includes account information and server history. They record and store all events as well as in-game assets collected by players (such as collectibles, items, and virtual currency).

The game database is owned by a certain company, and players have no real ownership of their accounts and items. In addition, centralized servers have many limitations and vulnerabilities, which may include:

• Technical problems leading to server failure
• Hackers invading the system
• Game out of service
• Improper account ban
• Lack of transparency in game mechanics and explosion rate
• li>
• Developers and administrators manipulate the game economy

In other words, the power lies in the hands of the game companies. Fortunately, blockchain technology can eliminate or mitigate the impact of most problems.

How does it work?

As a distributed database, blockchain-based systems can be used to verify and protect a variety of digital data, including game history, digital items, and tokenized assets. The main idea of using this technology is to take the power away from the game companies and give it to the players.

In this way, every player can fully control their own account and digital assets, and trade freely anytime and anywhere. There are many different ways to develop and maintain blockchain games.

How does blockchain affect the gaming world?

This section will introduce some of the most common ways that blockchain technology affects the gaming industry.

Real ownership

As mentioned above, based on zone Blockchain games allow players to permanently own and fully control their game assets. Typically, each asset is represented by a unique non-fungible token (NFT), such as an ERC-721 token.

These assets may include game cards, skins, equipment and characters. However, any asset type can be linked to a blockchain token maintained by a distributed network.

Decentralized market

Game companies have the right to manipulate The game’s drop rate and economy. They can also lock or bind in-game items, making them untradeable.

In contrast, games based on blockchain networks can establish decentralized markets. In this way, trust between players is achieved while creating resistance to censorship. All players can freely buy, sell and trade their game assets through peer-to-peer means.

Simplify payment process

Blockchain and smart contracts The ability to lower fees and speed up financial transactions. They can simplify various payment processes, not only peer-to-peer transactions between players, but also transactions between players and developers.

Game Multiverse

As long as the in-game data By linking blockchain tokens with items, players can trade assets between different games. This way, players can recycle digital assets while trying different games.

Because game items are represented by digital tokens, players can trade these tokens in other game marketplaces hosted on the same blockchain.

Fair gaming environment

According to the implementation plan, Blockchain can create open source, transparent and distributed game servers. In this case, the game mechanics can only be changed if a majority of participants in the network vote in favor.

In addition, the distributed nature of blockchain eliminates single points of failure, preventing hackers and cheaters from disrupting the game.

Unlimited gaming

If the game relies on centralization server, the developers can abandon the project or shut down the game at any time. With the support of blockchain technology, players can continue to play games even if developers run away.

As long as the blockchain network continues to operate, the game will always exist. In some cases, new developers take over and continue to improve the project.

Limitations

Although blockchain technology has opened up a new horizon for the gaming environment , but it still requires solving multiple puzzles. These include:

• Poor scalability. Blockchains tend to be much slower than centralized networks, potentially limiting the global rollout of games.
• Low application rate. While there are hundreds of blockchain games to choose from, overall demand is still low. Most games have a very small number of players.
• Centralization. Not all blockchain games can be fully decentralized. Some games use ERC-721 or other blockchain tokens, but are actually still running on centralized servers.
• Too simple. Except for a few masterpieces, most blockchain games are too simple to attract players who value graphics quality or exquisite gaming experience.
• Higher threshold. Raising funds to launch and maintain a blockchain game is difficult. Adoption and scalability issues can also limit developers' efforts.
• Competition is fierce. Blockchain games are usually developed by small independent groups (indies). It is difficult for these teams to compete with large gaming companies in the centralized world.

Fortunately, various solutions are gradually emerging. Many teams are trying to solve scalability issues using Ethereum Plasma, Lightning Network, and other Layer 2 solutions.

Blockchain game example

Compared with the traditional game industry, the blockchain Chain games are still an emerging market and are relatively small in scale. Despite this, there are hundreds of DApps and games built on blockchain networks.

Most decentralized applications and gaming platforms run on the Ethereum blockchain (such as Enjin and Loom). New projects are also emerging on other networks such as EOS, TRON, ONT, NEO, VeChain, and IOST. The following are several blockchain games:

• "Decentraland" (virtual reality platform)
• "Cryptokitties"
• Gods Unchained
• My Crypto Heroes
• "Cheeze Wizards"
• 《Crypto Space Commander》
• 《Mythereum》
• 《Axie Infinity》
• 《HyperSnakes》
• 《EOS Dynasty》
• 《EOS Knights》
• 《 Beyond the Void》
• 《CryptoZombies》
• 《Relentless》
• 《HyperDragons Go》
• "CryptoWars"

Summary

Obviously, block Chain technology has huge potential in the gaming industry. This technology brings significant improvements to gamers and developers, with significant increases in decentralization, transparency, and interoperability.

If developers break through the main limitations, blockchain is very likely to shape a better game world, and even open up a new entertainment field, allowing players to freely enjoy the fun of games.