While more companies and developers appreciate the value of integrating their games with blockchain, several pitfalls must be avoided. Experts note there is a ‘right’ way to introduce blockchain into games and that not doing so could risk alienating the player base – and possibly having to completely rebuild your systems from scratch.
This was one of the major talking points at the Unbounded Capital Summit recently held in New York. A panel of veterans and innovators discussed the impact of blockchain on the gaming sector and how it is set to change the industry.
The panel was hosted by Jackson Laskey, (Senior Advisor at Unbounded Capital), and included:
- Tyler Farnsworth, Chief Marketing Officer at Built by Gamers;
- Adam Kling, Founder of FYX Gaming;
- Brenton Gunning, Founder/Creator of Run;
- Joe de Pinto, Co-Founder of Haste Arcade.
Choosing the right blockchain protocol for your gaming platform
Kling noted that one of the most common mistakes that companies make when integrating blockchain into their games is that they choose the wrong protocol.
‘We started on Ethereum in 2018 and everything that we built we had to build more. There was no end to the solutions that we had to keep providing. We ended up moving to BSV blockchain (BSV) and by doing so, it just dramatically changed how we thought about building on the blockchain.’
Kling added that several other game developers also switched protocols during this period – indicating that more thought needs to be put into selecting the right chain before building on it.
‘There are a lot of projects that make a lot of money fast but when they actually get the users then they have to figure out how to scale. The infrastructure that we ended up pioneering on BSV taught us a lot about scale.’
Long-term success or short-term wins?
Kling said that the second thing that developers need to consider is whether they are building for long-term success or are only focused on cheap and easy wins.
‘We have been trying to do gameplay on-chain, which is sort of the holy grail because nobody has been able to do it yet. I think going forward that if you can offer that to 100,000 users then you are the biggest blockchain in the world. When that happens all of these other blockchains and protocols stop making sense.
‘When you start doing terabytes and terabytes of data it is offering more than anything we can conceive today.’
The importance of security when you choose a blockchain
He added that developers who are only looking at blockchain integration now have something of an advantage as they can see how other projects have failed and can develop games on a protocol like the BSV blockchain, knowing that it will scale and is secure.
He pointed to companies which have lost millions of users because they had to move from one protocol to another. He added that some people effectively lost their life savings because the protocol was not secure and was hacked.
‘That’s another thing you are going to need to think about – what are you going to do about the user’s assets? If it just goes poof one day because of a stupid security issue then that’s major and that’s when the regulators show up. Security matters.’