Games such as Fortnite and League of Legends have gained success in no small part due to their reliance on selling virtual goods (characters, in-game items, and currency), but for new players it’s not always clear how this system works and why they should participate.
Some of the biggest questions new user have regarding in-game goods are:
- What goods should they own?
- Which methods are best for trading?
- Who gets to dictate pricing?
The answers to these questions vary depending on a number of factors, including what games you play, the style of game and more. The resulting confusion is frustrating to many players, some to the point of refusing to buy virtual goods or even abandoning games that require large quantities of these items to advance from one level to the next. But blockchain may be the solution to these problems, and with actual ownership of virtual items comes a lot more than many players may expect.
One of the biggest issues for players with regard to ownership is that although they may be able to accumulate large amounts of in-game currency and items, they do not have legal ownership of any of their acquisitions. This is clear from the Terms and Conditions agreements of all gaming publishers, but blockchain can change the entire paradigm.
The blockchain is a decentralized ledger wherein there isn’t a single location where transactions are stored. Decentralization is the aspect of this that is most important to ownership of virtual goods as it does not require trust from anyone to conduct transactions. This is because on the blockchain, fraud is, by the very nature of the protocols, not possible. Therefore, players can depend on their virtual items being legitimate without needing to personally verify them — the blockchain does that automatically.
Of course, the idea of owning in-game items easily translates to cash in the minds of most players. Because, if you own an item, that means you can sell it. So a gamer could beat a high level boss, score a rare item and then be able to decide whether they want to keep it, or turn around and sell it to someone else. For players who can beat games quickly, this could potentially become very lucrative. And, if someone is a celebrity gamer, then any item they sell is more valuable, thus increasing their profits. Blockchain verifies each item and its history, so nobody can alter it, thus further driving up prices as the goods are authentic.
The use of blockchain in gaming will change not only the industry, but even the way they are played. At the moment, most games are centralized, which means all elements comprising a game are owned and controlled by the developers, from game design to graphics and virtual goods. This allows developers to make changes at any time, and prevents players from having substantial input or being able to refuse patches or other updates they feel detract from the gaming experience.
In gaming where blockchain is part of the system, large scale changes might be dependent not on the developers, but the will of an entire community, who can choose whether or not they accept tweaks proposed by developers. Instead, the moment a game goes live, its ownership is shared via the blockchain. There are a range of implications for such a shift in the gaming industry, and the end result may be social games which continue to evolve regardless of whether a game publisher feels they’re profitable — so long as people play the games they will remain in use, whether or not a developer would like them to be — all of which puts the power in the hands of every single player, and levels the field of gaming.