Appreciate your thoughts u/jaimex2! Yes, 99.9% of crypto games are terrible. As long as features can be done cheaper/faster/better without crypto, it has zero or negative value.
Paying for things with real money is secure enough, I have zero idea why anybody would want to add a layer of abstraction to something so simple. The only reason i can think of that someone would prefer crypto for game purchases is if they are trying to avoid taxes or something. It seems to me you're trying to come up with a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. I'm not sure it benefits anybody but the crypto company backing it.
Out of curiosity, it sounds like your hating quite heavily on crypto in games. Why did you co-found a crypto wallet sdk for games then?
Why is there no operational cost from the dev end? Who is paying for the on-chain transactions to run for these potential contests?
>Why is there no operational cost from the dev end? Who is paying for the on-chain transactions to run for these potential contests?
Oh yes, this is a good point. The dev will fund the transactions - but this will be almost negligible if the game is run on most L2 chains like Polygon. Far lower than if it was run manually through the contest mechanisms of today.
***Out of curiosity, it sounds like your hating quite heavily on crypto in games. Why did you co-found a crypto wallet sdk for games then?***
To be very honest, the disgruntlement came mostly after speaking to the 200+ devs who were supposedly building blockchain games but could not even tell me why crypto made sense for their game. π
>To be very honest, the disgruntlement came mostly after speaking to the 200+ devs who were supposedly building blockchain games but could not even tell me why crypto made sense for their game. π
idk if you realize this but AFAIA most crypto game devs are doing it bc they're being paid to by someone trying to sell crypto. its like asking a fetish artist why feet are so important to porn -- the answer is bc they're being paid to
Maybe it's because they are grifters, for whom crypto is just a get-rich-quick scheme?
Good luck to you in finding a new positive way to use this technology, but it's not gonna fair well if that market is full of such people.
Just curious - would you consider a contest that requires participants to deposit an entry fee, yet the prize pool only goes to the top 3 winners, betting?
Per definition, yes..
>betting
>
>the action of gambling money on the outcome of a race, game, or other unpredictable event.
>
>"football pools and other forms of betting"
>gambling
>
>play games of chance for money; bet.
>
>"he gambles on football"
games are about having fun. blockchain is a kind of "anti-fun" protocol, so I don't think it will ever work. 99% of gamers already hate micro-transactions, I don't see how this is any different and in a lot of ways it's worse because cryptocoins aren't even real money. they're like casino chips which often can't be cashed back in. so the only real audience you can get for this kind of stuff is vulnerable people who are addicted to gambling, which seems pretty unethical if you ask me. Here's my thoughts...have you tried identifying with a different protocol? something that doesn't have "chains" in the title maybe, free your mind...take a look at graph databases or something. you gotta get out of this crypto gutter my friend, set yourself free. there's a better way
I like how calmy and reasonably you approach this problem - a welcome change to the standard "HERE LOOK MY CRYPTO IS THE SOLUTION TO EVERYTHING", which is one of the reasons for the negative response from anyone sane towards anything "crypto".
Yet, the problem here again is that immutability and transparency is nothing a player cares about in a game at all. They might care, though, that the developer can ban or remove cheaters from the leaderboard. Something that is trivial if I just use a good old relational database, but near impossible if I have an immutable datastructure at the backend.
>Yet, the problem here again is that immutability and transparency is nothing a player cares about in a game at all.
This is my issue as well. While I sympathise with the OP, and appreciate the fact that they are thinking about gaming and crypto critically, a game is by its nature something that doesn't need that level of security. Many games already have large economies of digital resources which can be used for rewards, often via lootbox style mechanics or random loot drops in eg. Diablo-style games. I just don't see what crypto brings to the equation there.
>Yet, the problem here again is that immutability and transparency is nothing a player cares about in a game at all. They might care, though, that the developer can ban or remove cheaters from the leaderboard. Something that is trivial if I just use a good old relational database, but near impossible if I have an immutable datastructure at the backend.
Appreciate the refreshing comment - always down for keeping the discussion rational and mature! This is a very valid point as well. It's true that immutability and transparency might not be what us gamers want, and no matter how much anyone convinces us otherwise, it will be to no avail. I agree that if that's the only value crypto brings to games, then blockchain gaming will cease to exist eventually.
Crypto introduces an immense amount of overhead to any game. The benefits of using crypto must be huge. Not some small advantage, but some fundamental benefit. If there is no major benefit, adding all the overhead that is crypto to a game simply cannot be justified. Regardless of whether you "believe" in it or not.
Mate, you could sell a hardcore porn game and have less stigma surrounding it. Heck, you'd be able to sell it on Steam. I can't imagine how many serious devs are going to want to alienate their audience in such a fashion.
At this point, crypto enthusiasts are like sports fans. There's no rational reason for supporting a shitty mid-league team, but people still do and get enjoyment out of it, and so spend money on it, and it's mostly harmless.
In the same vein, there's no technical reason to put crypto in your game, but you might do anyway to appeal to crypto fans.
I think the only argument against "live and let live" is the environmental cost. Even if the game runs on proof-of-stake, it's still part of the wider world of crypto that includes proof-of-work.
Some games like Mobile Legends and League of Legends have on-the-ground teams working with agencies to run community-based tournaments for their players. Hence, this would be compared to organising and running these tournaments manually.
Sure, but they *could* very easily automate it if they wanted. Doing it using smart contracts doesn't make that any easier.
They don't automate it probably because they want to have each event customize and timed manually.
You didn't prove value to the player, just that you found an technical solution. Until it finds success in the market, your initial concerns are still accurate. You also haven't tested it in a live environment, it's like you spent a day making yourself dinner and declaring yourself a restaurant.
Have you looked at any games with default Game center or Google Play leaderboards? Without the gameplay and scoring done fully on a server, you get dozens of cheaters. So you just developed a way to let them permanently add their cheat scores to a Blockchain where it will be just as difficult to purge cheaters and bad usernames.
You spent a day with 3 other devs finding crypto is b...shit in games. In your shoes I'd take those 4 days (1 each dev) and develop my game or polish it.
Crypto is b...shit in games, that knowledge takes 5 minutes tops.
The only thing you can do with cypto you cant do with a database is share tokens between gaming companies and no gaming company will every want to do that because it can totally screw up a game's economy if they are not totally in control of it.
Do you mean there are no operational costs because you are blindly trusting the clients to post their own scores to the tournament without any kind of validation or cheat prevention?
What do smart contacts have to do with the operational costs of a recurring tournament? You are referring only to the operational cost of identifying the winner and sending him a prize? That is a ridiculously trivial fraction of the overall costs of running any kind of serious live service that isn't easily exploitable. And that's also easy to automate without crypto to whatever extent you want to. Sending Fiat money payments would usually be a manual step, but then again in your example it has already become shitcoins instead of Fiat, so I might as well just award my own soft currency that lives comfortably in my decades-old database like it always has.
I'm still skeptical of even the tiny benefit you claimed. Am I missing something?
I mean introducing gambling into the game didn't improve it mate. That made the game worse. You had a game that was perfectly fine as-is, then you introduced gambling into it so that people could lose their money even easier.
Brilliant. /s
Appreciate your thoughts u/TaifurinPriscilla! Yes, as long as features can be done cheaper/faster/better without crypto, it has zero or negative value.
Yeah, and fortunately that's the case with pretty much anything and everything. Even the elements crypto could excel at.
There's just no reason for crypto to exist in games.
The contest mechanics, rewards structure and operations will run based on what's written on the smart contracts. Hence, they will run autonomously without any inputs required. That said, running this is not necessarily cheap - but L2s like Polygon solves this problem (for now). Hope this clarifies!
I mean as in if the gameplay is not validated by the blockchain, whatever can be written to the blockchain, rendering whatever accounting in the blockchain useless. Who or what decides who won the contest?
I love the concept of play to earn. There are tons of gaming competitions with prizes, so there's certainly merit to it.
People literally waste their time doing stupid things like swag bucks. Difference is they get it in usable currency directly, whereas there are a bunch of steps involved before that crypto can be redeemed for sushi. Like having actual value for the coin, which isn't as obvious.
But how can it be run without cost? Who is footing the bill?
Thanks so much for the comment u/mxldevs! Yes, blockchain infrastructure today is extremely primitive (aka costly and inefficient). For now, game devs are footing the bill but L2s like Polygon actually make this pretty affordable.
Iβm interested in game development and crypto, but not both together. Itβs just a way for people like OP to take more money from poor people, because those are the most likely to gamble.
There's absolutely no reason you **can't** setup automated tournaments. It's as simple as creating a lobby for players, some threshold to either start the game based on time or amount of players present, and give out a prize. I've played a few games with tournament style events that have no overhead.
If it were a high stakes game though with actual considerable money on the line, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole if I knew there was 0 oversight into fair play. It's not the organizers I'm ever worried about, it'd be the other player.
What do you think of using NFT's as a paywall or subscription "card" for games and game services?
Do you think crypto could be used to allow players to own more of their gaming experience--like crafting items with unique traits that can be sold?
For me the value is in digital ownership that doesn't require me to trust a game studio.
For example in World of Warcraft you don't actually own anything in that game but people illegally sell billions of dollars of gear on third party marketplaces -- which is in direction violation of their EULAs.
Furthermore it's super annoying when blizzard just prints items endlessly. With crypto I could know in advance and see publicly what the supply of all items are so I don't waste time grinding for gear they would just make more of later so it becomes useless.
Crypto is great for players. It's a good way to filter out what games never to play.
Appreciate your thoughts u/jaimex2! Yes, 99.9% of crypto games are terrible. As long as features can be done cheaper/faster/better without crypto, it has zero or negative value.
Paying for things with real money is secure enough, I have zero idea why anybody would want to add a layer of abstraction to something so simple. The only reason i can think of that someone would prefer crypto for game purchases is if they are trying to avoid taxes or something. It seems to me you're trying to come up with a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. I'm not sure it benefits anybody but the crypto company backing it.
Out of curiosity, it sounds like your hating quite heavily on crypto in games. Why did you co-found a crypto wallet sdk for games then? Why is there no operational cost from the dev end? Who is paying for the on-chain transactions to run for these potential contests?
>Why is there no operational cost from the dev end? Who is paying for the on-chain transactions to run for these potential contests? Oh yes, this is a good point. The dev will fund the transactions - but this will be almost negligible if the game is run on most L2 chains like Polygon. Far lower than if it was run manually through the contest mechanisms of today. ***Out of curiosity, it sounds like your hating quite heavily on crypto in games. Why did you co-found a crypto wallet sdk for games then?*** To be very honest, the disgruntlement came mostly after speaking to the 200+ devs who were supposedly building blockchain games but could not even tell me why crypto made sense for their game. π
>To be very honest, the disgruntlement came mostly after speaking to the 200+ devs who were supposedly building blockchain games but could not even tell me why crypto made sense for their game. π idk if you realize this but AFAIA most crypto game devs are doing it bc they're being paid to by someone trying to sell crypto. its like asking a fetish artist why feet are so important to porn -- the answer is bc they're being paid to
Maybe it's because they are grifters, for whom crypto is just a get-rich-quick scheme? Good luck to you in finding a new positive way to use this technology, but it's not gonna fair well if that market is full of such people.
So you made a endless running game with betting?
Just curious - would you consider a contest that requires participants to deposit an entry fee, yet the prize pool only goes to the top 3 winners, betting?
Per definition, yes.. >betting > >the action of gambling money on the outcome of a race, game, or other unpredictable event. > >"football pools and other forms of betting" >gambling > >play games of chance for money; bet. > >"he gambles on football"
Yes.
name 1 sport that works that way
games are about having fun. blockchain is a kind of "anti-fun" protocol, so I don't think it will ever work. 99% of gamers already hate micro-transactions, I don't see how this is any different and in a lot of ways it's worse because cryptocoins aren't even real money. they're like casino chips which often can't be cashed back in. so the only real audience you can get for this kind of stuff is vulnerable people who are addicted to gambling, which seems pretty unethical if you ask me. Here's my thoughts...have you tried identifying with a different protocol? something that doesn't have "chains" in the title maybe, free your mind...take a look at graph databases or something. you gotta get out of this crypto gutter my friend, set yourself free. there's a better way
I like how calmy and reasonably you approach this problem - a welcome change to the standard "HERE LOOK MY CRYPTO IS THE SOLUTION TO EVERYTHING", which is one of the reasons for the negative response from anyone sane towards anything "crypto". Yet, the problem here again is that immutability and transparency is nothing a player cares about in a game at all. They might care, though, that the developer can ban or remove cheaters from the leaderboard. Something that is trivial if I just use a good old relational database, but near impossible if I have an immutable datastructure at the backend.
>Yet, the problem here again is that immutability and transparency is nothing a player cares about in a game at all. This is my issue as well. While I sympathise with the OP, and appreciate the fact that they are thinking about gaming and crypto critically, a game is by its nature something that doesn't need that level of security. Many games already have large economies of digital resources which can be used for rewards, often via lootbox style mechanics or random loot drops in eg. Diablo-style games. I just don't see what crypto brings to the equation there.
>Yet, the problem here again is that immutability and transparency is nothing a player cares about in a game at all. They might care, though, that the developer can ban or remove cheaters from the leaderboard. Something that is trivial if I just use a good old relational database, but near impossible if I have an immutable datastructure at the backend. Appreciate the refreshing comment - always down for keeping the discussion rational and mature! This is a very valid point as well. It's true that immutability and transparency might not be what us gamers want, and no matter how much anyone convinces us otherwise, it will be to no avail. I agree that if that's the only value crypto brings to games, then blockchain gaming will cease to exist eventually.
Crypto introduces an immense amount of overhead to any game. The benefits of using crypto must be huge. Not some small advantage, but some fundamental benefit. If there is no major benefit, adding all the overhead that is crypto to a game simply cannot be justified. Regardless of whether you "believe" in it or not.
Mate, you could sell a hardcore porn game and have less stigma surrounding it. Heck, you'd be able to sell it on Steam. I can't imagine how many serious devs are going to want to alienate their audience in such a fashion.
At this point, crypto enthusiasts are like sports fans. There's no rational reason for supporting a shitty mid-league team, but people still do and get enjoyment out of it, and so spend money on it, and it's mostly harmless. In the same vein, there's no technical reason to put crypto in your game, but you might do anyway to appeal to crypto fans. I think the only argument against "live and let live" is the environmental cost. Even if the game runs on proof-of-stake, it's still part of the wider world of crypto that includes proof-of-work.
How are they easier and how are they cheaper to run? And compared to what methods?
Some games like Mobile Legends and League of Legends have on-the-ground teams working with agencies to run community-based tournaments for their players. Hence, this would be compared to organising and running these tournaments manually.
Sure, but they *could* very easily automate it if they wanted. Doing it using smart contracts doesn't make that any easier. They don't automate it probably because they want to have each event customize and timed manually.
You didn't prove value to the player, just that you found an technical solution. Until it finds success in the market, your initial concerns are still accurate. You also haven't tested it in a live environment, it's like you spent a day making yourself dinner and declaring yourself a restaurant. Have you looked at any games with default Game center or Google Play leaderboards? Without the gameplay and scoring done fully on a server, you get dozens of cheaters. So you just developed a way to let them permanently add their cheat scores to a Blockchain where it will be just as difficult to purge cheaters and bad usernames.
You spent a day with 3 other devs finding crypto is b...shit in games. In your shoes I'd take those 4 days (1 each dev) and develop my game or polish it. Crypto is b...shit in games, that knowledge takes 5 minutes tops.
"He's getting them to sell to him" Do try to be a little less transparent about it
There isn't. It does nothing that isn't already possible, just without the buzzword.
The only thing you can do with cypto you cant do with a database is share tokens between gaming companies and no gaming company will every want to do that because it can totally screw up a game's economy if they are not totally in control of it.
"I couldn't find value in something in a day, it must be useless" Oh yeah, analytical approach
Crypto games? Sounds like an easy way to get a bitcoin miner maliciously mining your PC.
Do you mean there are no operational costs because you are blindly trusting the clients to post their own scores to the tournament without any kind of validation or cheat prevention? What do smart contacts have to do with the operational costs of a recurring tournament? You are referring only to the operational cost of identifying the winner and sending him a prize? That is a ridiculously trivial fraction of the overall costs of running any kind of serious live service that isn't easily exploitable. And that's also easy to automate without crypto to whatever extent you want to. Sending Fiat money payments would usually be a manual step, but then again in your example it has already become shitcoins instead of Fiat, so I might as well just award my own soft currency that lives comfortably in my decades-old database like it always has. I'm still skeptical of even the tiny benefit you claimed. Am I missing something?
nah thanks
I mean introducing gambling into the game didn't improve it mate. That made the game worse. You had a game that was perfectly fine as-is, then you introduced gambling into it so that people could lose their money even easier. Brilliant. /s
Appreciate your thoughts u/TaifurinPriscilla! Yes, as long as features can be done cheaper/faster/better without crypto, it has zero or negative value.
Yeah, and fortunately that's the case with pretty much anything and everything. Even the elements crypto could excel at. There's just no reason for crypto to exist in games.
How are you going to validate each contest? Inputting the inputs of a realtime application into a blockchain is not cheap or playable.
The contest mechanics, rewards structure and operations will run based on what's written on the smart contracts. Hence, they will run autonomously without any inputs required. That said, running this is not necessarily cheap - but L2s like Polygon solves this problem (for now). Hope this clarifies!
I mean as in if the gameplay is not validated by the blockchain, whatever can be written to the blockchain, rendering whatever accounting in the blockchain useless. Who or what decides who won the contest?
I love the concept of play to earn. There are tons of gaming competitions with prizes, so there's certainly merit to it. People literally waste their time doing stupid things like swag bucks. Difference is they get it in usable currency directly, whereas there are a bunch of steps involved before that crypto can be redeemed for sushi. Like having actual value for the coin, which isn't as obvious. But how can it be run without cost? Who is footing the bill?
Thanks so much for the comment u/mxldevs! Yes, blockchain infrastructure today is extremely primitive (aka costly and inefficient). For now, game devs are footing the bill but L2s like Polygon actually make this pretty affordable.
Iβm interested in game development and crypto, but not both together. Itβs just a way for people like OP to take more money from poor people, because those are the most likely to gamble.
There's absolutely no reason you **can't** setup automated tournaments. It's as simple as creating a lobby for players, some threshold to either start the game based on time or amount of players present, and give out a prize. I've played a few games with tournament style events that have no overhead. If it were a high stakes game though with actual considerable money on the line, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole if I knew there was 0 oversight into fair play. It's not the organizers I'm ever worried about, it'd be the other player.
What do you think of using NFT's as a paywall or subscription "card" for games and game services? Do you think crypto could be used to allow players to own more of their gaming experience--like crafting items with unique traits that can be sold?
For me the value is in digital ownership that doesn't require me to trust a game studio. For example in World of Warcraft you don't actually own anything in that game but people illegally sell billions of dollars of gear on third party marketplaces -- which is in direction violation of their EULAs. Furthermore it's super annoying when blizzard just prints items endlessly. With crypto I could know in advance and see publicly what the supply of all items are so I don't waste time grinding for gear they would just make more of later so it becomes useless.
Don't you still need to trust the game studio to implement a game that honors the item though?
Yup. Unless they make the game servers public, open source, or better yet have a DAO that allocates game revenue funds -- then no.
What was the difference between a smart contract and, say, a cronjob in this use case?