Audiences around the globe just don't want to drag themselves out of the fantasy woven in Ready Player One, the breathtaking movie crossed $500M at worldwide box-office.
The reason is simple. In the utopia of ‘Oasis’, a VR game where imagination rules it all, you can go anywhere, do anything, and be anyone as you wish: climbing the greatest pyramid with spider-man in Egypt, walking and dancing in the air, creating a fancy Lamborghini in a blink with your mind and driving it flashing across the sky, and teaming up with iron man and Gundam FG to fight against T-rex, Godzilla and other bad guys. Sorry for what you have done but cannot change it? Just toss out a time ball, a powerful tool that rolls back the wheel of time and gives you the opportunity to rewrite your life.
In this movie, we have a glimpse at the magnificent future of games.
A cutting-edge technology[AS one cutting-edge technology], blockchain is bound to change how we play. Games like Oasis are not merely something visionary. Nevertheless, blockchain games on the market today still stand a thousand miles away from such goal.
Although the world has a hundredsome blockchain-based games out there at present, a considerable part of them (sorry to say so but it’s true) are actually anything but games. Basically, in most cases, these games are nothing more than coin speculations, or transactions of virtual assets, where a coin is embodied in a graphic avatar, such as a pet cat. While flocks of speculators are likely to gather around in a short period of time, real gamers may find them boring and less thrilling. The greatest merit of such blockchain games lies in the fact that they have helped educate the market in an early stage and set a benchmark for successors reference.
What Does A True Blockchain Game Look Like?
First things first, it should be with fundamental attributes of a game, i.e. it must be entertaining and fun at least. After all, blockchain for games is a technology that enhances gamers experience with innovative and quality stories, graphics, and scenarios, not simply presenting cats or dogs for transaction. At the industry level, games should be the driving force for the development of blockchain and not the other way around. This is because the supply depends on the demand, and the user base of gaming industry is orders of magnitude larger than that of the blockchain industry.
Blockchain will build an innovative in-game economic system, toning up the interaction between the virtual and real worlds. As game gears and props are virtual assets per se, it is possible using blockchain technology to set up an industry-wide trustworthy currency system. This means gamers are able to convert their virtual assets of all games on the chain by Tokens, or even deposit and withdraw them. Unlike traditional gaming platforms, where it is almost impossible for gamers to protect their interests once the official provider decides to suspend its service, blockchain platforms allow gamers to either sell their virtual assets to other gamers or exchange them for different gears of another game, in Tokens, when they are tired of play a certain game.
The gaming world will be a self-sustaining ecosystem co-built by all gamers. Not being the ultimate decision-maker anymore, developers in the system only define core rules, proprietary props and gears. Gamers “autonomously” determine the design of game and unceasingly upgrade economic ecology. In this way, the game enjoys an extended life cycle too.
Instead of simply transferring games on hand and reducing diversity of gaming platforms, blockchain gives rise to brand new game genres. The state-of-the-art technology will bring about new game platforms and genres, just as developing new mobile games instead of fitting PC games into smartphones.
The transformation to blockchain games guarantees the outgrowth of new game industry and peripheral ecology. Game, film, online live-show, animation and other industries will inevitably blend in an unprecedented way in the years to come.
Although Oasis is designed and controlled by the practically omnipotent developer based on a strongly centralized frame, we may clearly notice its attempt on decentralization from the world views expressed and how activities are arranged. In the game, problems of your motorcycle, for example, can be fixed by another gamer, and gamers may build their own robots to engage in a combat. This is quite distinct from the traditional concept where gamers follow the well-plotted route, fooling away their money to buy gears.
In the future, the world of blockchain game will be an existence free from the control of its game company. Just like bitcoins, which had nothing to do with Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator, once they were developed. In addition to coins allocated to him in the first place, Nakamoto may not receive extra benefits from the bitcoin system, not to mention heaping them up. That’s why blockchain games are fundamentally and overwhelmingly different from the centralized ones. In fact, except for some rules set by creators, all other elements in the cycle from creation and evolution to termination are under the control of gamers in the real world; and all benefits in the game are generated to serve the gamers rather than the provider on a monopolistic position snatching away a large part of the cake.
As gamers play a more significant role, marketing-side or supply-side platforms no longer monopolize the release of games. Since their coins and virtual assets appreciate only when more people are involved, gamers will voluntarily keep the economic system robust and stable, maintain and upgrade the game to attract more new comers. Eventually, the traditional pro-provider benefit distribution structure will see its end.
You must also be exciting to witness the advent of such gaming world!