Gaming Use Cases for Blockchain

The blockchain ecosystem is expanding quickly and has an increasing daily impact on more and more people. The technology, while primarily employed in bitcoin networks, also enables creative solutions across other industries.

But did you know that the gaming business is also evolving as a result of blockchain technology?

The Present-Day Gaming Industry

Nowadays, a centralized paradigm is used in the vast majority of online games. This indicates that all relevant information is kept on a server that the game's administrators have complete authority over.

The data typically consists of account information and server history, which keeps track of all player-collected in-game items and events (such as collectibles, items, and virtual money).

Players don't actually own their accounts and things because the database is owned by a single business. Additionally, centralized servers have numerous drawbacks and weaknesses, some of which include:

• server failure brought on by technical problems
• hacker intrusion into a system
• Game shut down
• Unjustified account suspension
• Lack of openness in game mechanisms and fees
• Manipulating the game industry through administrators and creators

In other words, the game development corporations hold the sway. However, blockchain technology thankfully has the ability to fix or lessen the majority of these issues.

How does it work?

A blockchain-based system can be used to authenticate and safeguard various kinds of digital data, including in-game history, digital objects, and tokenized assets because it functions as a distributed database. The major goal is to return control to the players rather than the gaming industry.

Each player will be able to fully control their accounts and digital assets in this fashion, and they will always be free to trade these items. A blockchain game can be created and maintained in a variety of ways.

How might blockchain change the gaming industry?

The most frequent ways that blockchain technology may affect the gaming industry are described in this section.

Real ownership

As previously indicated, blockchain-based games enable users to permanently own and fully control all of their in-game possessions. Every asset is typically represented by a special, non-fungible token (NFT), like the ERC-721 tokens.

A few examples of the assets are in-game cards, skins, items, and characters. However, all asset types can be connected to blockchain tokens, which are kept up by a distributed network, regardless of the asset type.

Decentralized marketplace

Gaming firms have the ability to control the economy and drop rate of their games. They can also tie or lock in-game items to prevent trading of those items.

On the other hand, blockchain-based games allow for the development of decentralized markets. This eliminates the requirement for player trust while simultaneously offering censorship resistance. On a peer-to-peer basis, all users are free to buy, sell, and trade their in-game items.

Streamlining payments

Financial transactions can be sped up and fees reduced using blockchain technology and smart contracts. Peer-to-peer transactions between players as well as transactions between players and developers can both be facilitated by them.

Multi-universe gaming

Gamers can exchange assets between games by tying in-game data and items to blockchain tokens. Players might be able to reuse their digital creations as a result while trying out various games.

Players can exchange these tokens on other gaming markets that are housed on the same blockchain because game items are represented by digital tokens.

Fair playing ground

Blockchain technology can be used to build open-source, distributed, and transparent gaming servers, depending on how it is implemented. In these situations, changing the gaming rules is only possible if a majority of the network agrees.

Furthermore, because there is no single point of failure due to the distributed nature of blockchains, hackers and cheats are prevented from interfering with the game.

Unlimited gaming

When a game is hosted on a single server, its creators have complete control over when to stop working on it. Blockchain enables gamers to go on playing a game even if the developers leave.

The game is still active as long as the blockchain network is operational. Sometimes fresh developers take over to keep the project improving.

Limitations

Although blockchain technology has expanded the gaming landscape, it still faces several obstacles that must be solved. Some of them consist of:

• Scalability. Blockchains have a reputation for being significantly slower than centralized networks, which may hinder games from being widely embraced.
• Lack of adoption. Despite the availability of hundreds of blockchain games, there is still relatively little demand. The majority of games just have a few players.
• Centralization. Blockchain-based games are not all entirely decentralized. While some of them operate on a decentralized server, others employ ERC-721 or other blockchain tokens.
• Simplicity. While there are some exceptions, the majority of blockchain games are far too basic to appeal to players who appreciate beautiful graphics or a complex gameplay environment.
• Barriers to entry. It can be difficult to raise money to launch and operate a blockchain game. Scalability issues and a lack of adoption may restrict developers' work.
• Competition. Blockchain games are frequently created by little, autonomous teams (indie games). These teams might struggle to compete against the world's largest gaming corporations.

Closing statements

It is obvious that the gaming business has a lot of promise for blockchain technology. Both players and developers benefit greatly from it, particularly in terms of decentralization, transparency, and interoperability.

Blockchain is expected to improve the gaming industry and create a brand-new genre of entertainment that gives users more flexibility if developers can get over the key obstacles.