Satoshi Dice(2012) and on-chain game ICOs(2017), What they have in common.(An informal study of case)
No much to say the truth, but enough to write some lines. The history of satoshi dice is well known and anyone can search about, but let me save your time telling again.
SatoshiDice was a pioneer in on-chain games, don't be fooled by all those ICO's selfnamed "the first probably fair onchain game".
Satoshi Dice operate since 2012 and put a simple dice game inside bitcoin's blockchain. Something like launch a rocket to moon with a hp calculator (no really :) ) .
For those who do not know you can place "stuff" in blockchain, like photos, text or a dice game without smartcontracts and satoshidice set bitcoin comunity on fire doing exactly it, suddenly there was a new utility to bitcoin, the gamble.
And blockchain was perfect for it, but satoshi dice generate so much traffic, blocks are so full of penny bets that some view Satoshi Dice as a DDoS attack against Bitcoin. But DDoS doesn't generate dividends? It does? Satoshi Dice did.
In 2014 Satoshi Dice begin to operate off-chain and lost some of their charm but he is still out there. Yet on-chain and true random numbers have great appeal because it create trustworty game in a area full of fear of deception, so after SatoshiDice set the blueprint others came after his steps seeking the same success, money and fame.
Ok, some of you might start to think at this point: "But we are in 2017 now, almost 2018, and people still are talking about Bitcoin attacks, blocks are still full and people still watch astounded bitcoin's drama. Looks like there is no place for on-chain games with such volume in Bitcoin, so the solution is to develop new on-chain games on other chains like Ethereum, right?"
Well... You know what people says. Difficult problems have easy solutions. I agree, but that solutions usually are wrong. Think about it with me, if was so simple why Satoshi Dice didn't by himself? Because smartcontract by itself will not solve the problem, soon or later blocks will fill again.
So what are all this game ICOs about?! My guess? Some are selling a pipedream knowing that their token will never hit "the nerve", others may be looking to a big splash to sell the idea(which actually don't work at a full) to a major game company wishing a enter point into blockchain mania.
BUT, there are out there too the true wannabes, groups with balls to build a real product. Copy is not big deal, inovation is.
It is hard to tell the diference just by looking quickly from outside, but lets take a look in three I had pick to analyze. But first, don't assume the others I have not mention are scams, they can be legit and perform good, I just do not have the time to study that yet, more over, the ones I will talk can thrive or not, don't take my personal opnions as investment advice, always do you own research.
#Peerplays
Peerplays pick the weak points of Satoshi Dice and made a fortress, literally, they are based in a bunker in New Scotia.
My opnion may be biased 'cause I have some PPY, but that means too I have a closer eye on this project from the begin.
Peerplays's trump is graphene blockchain, they are very confident that graphene will never fill her blocks because there are a lot of then per minute, graphene is industrial speed blockchain, same as steemit and bitshares. Search youself to know what is it about.
Recently the recruits from New Scotia paid first dividends from first on-chain graphene game, they had already a working product, so why this guys did not finish off Satoshi Dice yet? Because, it is not a bitcoin paid game, second, it is not a "dice" game, or a flipcoin game, it is a bit more complicated.
The way they think are not wrong, did you ever seen a flipcoin game in a cassino? Of course not, it will be madness from the perspective of anyone who isn't a complety dummy in cash games, but I will tell you this; #crypto is full of dummies, newbies and why not to say, idiots.
The averagejoe looks for something simple where he can lost the satoshis he just received from a faucet and what can be more simple then a flip coin or a lotto? (this is half of magic of SatoshiDice)
So and what is the first game from Peerplays? Rock-Paper-Scyssors (Helmbet for the close friends), Yes, I'm serious it is not a joke, you can set tornaments of じゃんけんぽん in Peerplays. AHA!
The problem is you will need to buy PPY in a #Bitshares exchange (what is impossible for a newbie) or in Livecoin exchange, download the Peerplays wallet, set an account, send your ppy to your account, and play? Of course not!
You have to download Helmbet too. hehehe. It is not embedded in wallet (yet) and is not a browser game too. Helmbet is a 3D game made in Unity3D and believe or not run on-chain, a gorgeous overkill to rock-paper-scyssors game.
The case is the Helmbet wasn't build to conquest the world by itself, it exist as a conceptual car in a big event to proof it is possible to make it and to sell the real next products, which, in case of Peerplays, are a global sportsbet market, a lottery(Ah! this is good stuff, remember those newbies?) and an internal exchange to support the betting system in a myriad of coins(someday). Not in this particular order.
No one can tell this guys aren't ambicious, they are aiming the top, but maybe for a bit lost of some traction and speed in the begin they felt a bit behind of roadmap, but are gaining momentum again.
There are a lot of potential in this project and if they pick the right people (Want to know New Scotia? They are hiring) and do good partnerships this project might perform really good in next few year.
#Wagger
Wagger aim to be a global sportsbet market like Peerplays, maybe e-sports too, the difference is it will run over #Waves blockchain, what can reduce the time of development if compared with Peerplays. The concept is fundamentally diferent from Peerplays, or ERC20 tokens, or even satoshi dice because Waves is fundamentally diferent blockchain too.
Wagger use a more frugal approach growing the network of nodes as the volume demands it (as a remember from whitepaper). But last time I saw there wasn't a working product yet, and the process of validating results in their betmatching appeared obscure to me til now, more over once nodes might be able to set their own odds, yes you will be able to play arbitrage bets, collution might be a problem that I really want to see they managed in near future.
As I can tell the selling of their product is more foccused in user experience, which is a weak point on Peerplays team until recently.
Peerplays has a product (helmbet) that not one wants to play, Wagger do not have a product, but are doing a relative good job in sell it, what I'm saying is based in the five time market cap of wagger in comparison com Peerplays, both are in exotic blockchains, and are listed in few exchanges, but Wagger has better marketing internet material and capitalizes better on global sport events doing promotions on his site (this genarate lots os parasitic traffic). If they succedd in release a good working product they can assure a good slice of the market. The last news (2017 Q4) was the launch of Wagger wallet, what Peerplays done in 2017 Q1 or Q2, Im not sure.
Wagger will not pay dividend like SatoshiDice or Peerplays, what simplify things once they decide enter in a lot of jurisdictions, in other hand they have a buy-back system with a complicated formula to attract investors for the token and keep the price of token stable, what is important because all bets will be made in WGR tokens (If I understood correctly), not in top coins like Peerplays aim.
So the success of wagger is peg to Waves, if Waves goes bigger, Wagger will benefit greatly. Keep an eye on this duo.
#DAOCasino
It is a #ERC20 token but it have a singular feature, dao.casino do not try to emulale the house(or the dealer) on blockchain or even in a side chain, the blockchain is used as a "book of bets" and dao.casino mediate the game rules, thats all. There are a real cassino owner, there are real banckers, real players(of course)... the smartcontracts set the general rules and that is the reason why this ERC20 could be extreme successful, because once they present a good experience to user with his prototypes. Casinos may just adopt it cause it is not a disruptive tecnology.
Other curious thing I read was that all taxes on smartcontract are executed once and when a user leave the table, and unfortanelly when it happens all players on the table(blackjack) have their game ended too :D If they did not correct it yet , they should done it soon. (And then I will invest)
The atual cassinos could just use it, so no need to develop their own software, and even for those who already had software, the costs of dao.casino could be an atractive because the developers are inserted in system of BET tokens as freelancers.
Scalability isn't an major problem on dao.casino, huge volumes over penny bets is not the objetive here, the final user will be small cassino without presense online (this comment is my assumption) who want to join the blockchain revolution, other potential clients are private dealers doing a second job like in UBER. Bankers will finance the banking for passive incoming. Every one doing your job like a happy family, in the paper at least.
They should play higher bets e lower volume compared with Peerplays and Wagger on average, or not, but casino's games are a very interesting niche anyway and I'm considering Dao.Casino as perfect complement once Peerplays or Wagger has no public intention on support casino games.
I do not dive deep enough to tell what is the base of the games development, what I know is a site written on IPFS, with a sign-in botton (what is a con if compared with SatoshiDice) and in where there are a beta blackjack (testnet yet) and other games coming soon, if you wanna be a dao.casino freelancer I have no idea where you should start.
Not bad idea in general, not bad at all, but if you want join know russian will helps a lot ;)
I have to try myself anytime soon.
thanks for your time and have a nice crypto day.