Re:What Happens When Twelve Thousand Game Developers Converge?
by somenameforme on Sunday April 10, 2022 @04:38AM
(#30975368)
Think about crypto in terms of what it fundamentally is: a decentralized append-only ledger with validation. And so think of anything relying remote storage, but without the need of centralization. There are two big general benefits:
1) Games can have online features without having to rely on centralized servers. It's an increasing shame that many games which have rich online options end up becoming crippled, if not killed, once the servers inevitably are taken offline. "Crypto" can solve this problem in some cases by being able to decentralize certain types of online features.
2) The decentralization aspect can enable various features to be used independent of a single game. Of course the same is also true of a single server but then you're in an even worse scenario with the servers going offline issue where a single server going down could end up killing multiple dependent titles. As well, with a decentralized solution, competing companies that may not want to depend on one another but might want to share in-game content could do so.
Dragon's Dogma, which was full of relatively innovative features, has at least 2 great use case scenarios. In the game players can use your character as an NPC ally within their game, a 'pawn'. With crypto you could create a decentralized cache of these pawns with the usual benefits: they can theoretically be used in games besides just DD, the pawn system keeps working long after Capcom kills the servers.
Another example was the final optional boss. No individual player can kill it, instead it has a shared hp pool that players chip away at until it dies and each player that contributed is then rewarded. Again a perfect example of something that could be done in a decentralized way that has some possibility of even doing things like having the same boss in multiple games, and of course also working even once the servers are taken offline.
Basically it's just another tool that you can do neat things with.
1) Games can have online features without having to rely on centralized servers. It's an increasing shame that many games which have rich online options end up becoming crippled, if not killed, once the servers inevitably are taken offline. "Crypto" can solve this problem in some cases by being able to decentralize certain types of online features.
2) The decentralization aspect can enable various features to be used independent of a single game. Of course the same is also true of a single server but then you're in an even worse scenario with the servers going offline issue where a single server going down could end up killing multiple dependent titles. As well, with a decentralized solution, competing companies that may not want to depend on one another but might want to share in-game content could do so.
Dragon's Dogma, which was full of relatively innovative features, has at least 2 great use case scenarios. In the game players can use your character as an NPC ally within their game, a 'pawn'. With crypto you could create a decentralized cache of these pawns with the usual benefits: they can theoretically be used in games besides just DD, the pawn system keeps working long after Capcom kills the servers.
Another example was the final optional boss. No individual player can kill it, instead it has a shared hp pool that players chip away at until it dies and each player that contributed is then rewarded. Again a perfect example of something that could be done in a decentralized way that has some possibility of even doing things like having the same boss in multiple games, and of course also working even once the servers are taken offline.
Basically it's just another tool that you can do neat things with.