The video game economic revolution, part 2

The video game economic revolution, part 2

Introduction

In the first part of this article, entitled the video game economic revolution, part 1, I discussed the back ground concepts of this revolution. If you haven’t read that first article, please read it first here.

In this first part I described the evolution of video games from obscure, solitary games you play at home to the famous games played worldwide by millions of people, as part of a 2 billion dollar a year industry. In this article I also described the profits from the games, the merchandise, the video game tournaments and how this industry was becoming more like professional sports. Lastly I listed in that article the components of the cryptocurrency economy, which were making this economic revolution in video games possible. I now pick up where I left off with a description of the first such game and it’s unique model for generating new types of profits from video games, where game creatosr, game players and game fans can profit monetarily from the game.

Lightnite

One such game prototype is a game called Light⚡️Nite, a first person shooter type game being created by Satoshi Game Studios. This independent game studio believes that players should be able to earn money playing the game and that players should own their loot. The leadership of Satoshi Game Studio also feels that Cryptocurrency is the perfect store of value to monetize video games to the advantage of gamers. They believe that Bitcoin is widely known enough and valued enough to be the best cryptocurrency to carry this mission forward. To this end, a gaming studio with a dream, partnered with a blockchain company with a certain set of unique skills to make this a reality. The blockchain company Blockstream was the major player behind the development of the Bitcoin Lightning Network, which is a side chain of the famous Bitcoin main chain. By utilizing this side chain, Blockstream was able to speed up transactions on the Bitcoin lightening network and to reduce transaction fees. This technology allowed the creation of micro-transactions, micro transaction fees and a revolutionary way to use Bitcoin in micro-economies worldwide. But a perfect place for this technology appears to be video games. I will write more later, but first I wish to tell you about the game.

Lightnite description from the game creator

Lightnite is an online multiplayer battle royale game where every specific digital interaction between players triggers a monetary reward or penalty.In simple words, players earn bitcoin by shooting other players and lose bitcoin when they get shot. However, some of the items in the game are worth real bitcoin and can be picked up (usually they are left on the ground by dead players and sold for Bitcoin in the in game store. So you get paid to play the game, you own the loot, you can collect the loot in an in-game wallet, you can sell the loot at an in-game store and you can withdrawal the Bitcoin to your personal Bitcoin wallet or to an exchange. Additionally, Lightnite’s store allows users to purchase in-game items in exchange of bitcoin, using the in-game balance or through a micro-transaction from the player’s wallet; the in-game bitcoin balance updates in real-time every time a player shoots get shot or pick up a valuable item (the player can then exit the game when he wants to and instantly withdraw his balance into his own-wallet). The game creator, Satoshis Games u the Lightning Network (Bitcoin’s transaction layer) to integrate Bitcoin micro-transactions within Lightnite. The only thing that players need to do in order to play Lightnite and enjoy the full potential of the in-game Bitcoin micro-transactions is downloading a wallet that supports the Lightning Network (e.g. Bluewallet), send a small fraction of bitcoin to that wallet and start sending and receiving bitcoin over the Lightning Network while playing Lightnite.
Source

Many things make this new economy possible, a Bitcoin sidechain, non-fungible coins, specialized wallets and sidechain mainchain interoperability.

The Bitcoin Lightening Network and Sidechains
A side-chain is a blockchain that runs parallel to another Main blockchain. It’s purpose is to enable new features and capabilities while leveraging the Main chain’s security. A sidechain supports the secure transfer of assets between chains. The Bitcoin Lightning Network is a Bitcoin blockchain sidechain. It provides the structure for a new micro-economy the video game. Transactions occur on the Lightening Network side-chain, but are ultimately recorded on the main chain, the Bitcoin block chain. The Blockstream developer took this concept and created a sidechain where micro transactions or very small fractions of Bitcoin could be conducted at faster transactional speed, lower transactional cost and then recorded on the main Bitcoin blockchain. This concept of micro transactions, micro-transaction fees and faster transaction times allows small transactions to occur on the Bitcoin sidechain, and in this case they are transactions inside a video game. You kill a player, you get 500 Satoshi. While 500 Satoshi is very small, and the transactional cost or miners’ fees would make it economically irrational on the Bitcoin main chain, it’s not expensive on a sidechain.

Non-fungible Tokens
An important part of any video game is the weapons, gear and game specific items. These items are usually won by a character and are only useable by them. But as we learned in the Steem Based game Splinterlands if we make those in game items unique visa vie non-fungible tokens, they can be traded, or bought and sold between players. If the in game reward currency is something with value outside the game like Steem or Bitcoin then winning games and obtaining items of value takes on a whole new meaning.

Closing Comments
If you think a first person shooter game, where you earn Bitcoin (Satoshi) for killing opposing players and where you can sell clothing and weapons you take off their corpse for Bitcoin sounds fun and profitable, I suggest you buy the game!

Use my discount code and get a 20% Discount on Pre-Order Price of 20 Euros, Save 5 Euros!, Plus Get 500 SATS of Bitcoin and a free Skin! https://lightnite.io/ref=shortsegments U

@shortsegments

Here’s the trailer for the game below