Blockchain and gaming have been one of the first successful stories linked to the smart contract invention (CryptoKitties).
Having a fair and transparent system to manage Digital Assets - like fungible tokens and collections - has been a natural evolution of the blockchains with smart contracts environment, and it allows developers to start making their game’s digital assets finally valuable for users.
Since the first MMOs gaming company started to sell digital assets, and as soon as they allowed to ‘transfer’ it (like in World of Warcraft, or in the more specific Second Life), a parallel market evolved immediately, sometimes even when there were no trading options and full accounts were traded (World of Warcraft).
Some games started to include a marketplace in the game itself in order to control it.
But since the arrival of Smart Contract based blockchain (Ethereum), the ownership of these digital assets was linked to an old account/password mechanism stored on the company databases, where investments made by players on their assets were linked only to that specific game, under full control of the gaming company.
If the users’ accounts were banned or deleted, they would lose not just the possibility to play but also all their values and their control over all the assets, skills and money they gained during their game time.
Using the crypto materials of a blockchain, a private/public key system, that the network can’t control because is generated by the users themself, has been a huge leap in the digital assets management: users were finally allowed to have complete control over their assets, with nobody in the world being able to cancel/transfer/steal their digital goods unless the users lost control over their private keys.
Then, the smart contract added the fair method in order to have a transparent algorithm managing these features, where nobody - neither the smart contract creators or the game company - can have control over the private assets.
But why did the blockchain gaming sector not explode? Why do blockchain-related games have less than 100.000 users, while the videogames market counts more than 2 billion users?
The main reason is that getting into the public blockchain mechanism is not that easy: users need to buy cryptocoins to operate over the network (ETH for ethereum to pay the GAS for example), and that process is not easy at all, as you need to go over complicated exchanges that require KYC steps, a bank account and many other steps, or the users have to mine their coins with powerful computers dedicated.
Feature |
Public Blockchain |
Private Blockchain |
Transparency |
Yes, using public nodes anyone can read the transactions over the network. |
Yes, there is no way for the network owner to tamper or change any information without breaking the blockchain. |
Fairness |
Yes, the code runs over public smart contracts that can be read by anyone. |
Yes, the smart contracts are deployed on the network and cannot be changed without evidence on the blockchain. |
Speed |
From hundreds to Thousands OPS per seconds, depending on the network, shared between all the apps. |
Tens thousands OPS per seconds, but dedicated to the game, not shared if not required. |
Cost |
Low initial costs, just the smart contract development and deployment. High on-going costs, difficult to upgrade/update. |
Medium initial cost, for installation and development of the smart contract. Very low on-going costs, easy to upgrade/update. |
Cost effective |
Every action requires a fee payment, even if very small, still someone needs to pay them to the network (the user or the company). Impossible to control cost management. |
Installation and server management are the only costs for the company. There are no costs for users: the private network runs over low cost cloud hosting, just like the game server, and so the costs can be managed and scaled up if the game needs it. |
PBGS is a private semi-permissioned blockchain developed by Cyberdeck s.r.l. , based on Hyperledger Sawtooth. The system consists of a series of easy deployable Docker to manage the network nodes and one or more (depending on the customer requirement) Transaction Processor to manage the smart contracts.
The servers are linux based and can be installed on low requirement cloud or hosted virtual machines (4GB Ram , 8 Cores, 40GB Disks).
The blockchain supports a pluggable consensus mechanism: Cyberdeck blockchain can be based on POET (Proof of Elapsed Time) or PBFT (Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance). Both these consensus are quick and strong enough for private network management.
The blockchain supports a federation mechanism that allows to connect more than one private blockchain sharing some level of integration.
Docker lists for each node are:
- Validator Node
-*Rest API Node
- Consensus Node
- Setting Node
-*RPC Node
- Transaction Processors Nodes
The PBGS uses a series of smart contracts developed by Cyberdeck s.r.l.
The list of smart contract already developed that can be chosen depending on the company requirements are:
- Fungible Token
A freely transferable and divisible token that follows the ERC20 schema. It can represent a money system in the game or between games.
- Fungible Token Factory
A factory to generate multiple tokens. If the game requires more than one coin or a more complex monetary/reward system, the factory allows the company to manage multiple fungible tokens and generate them at will.
- Non-Fungible Token
A freely transferable and indivisible token representing a unique item; it can be linked to any collectible digital asset in a game.
- Non-Fungible Token Factory
A factory to generate multiple non-fungible tokens with different characteristics.
- Tokens Marketplace
If more than one token is managed, or the company wants to create an internal marketplace for their assets, this smart contract allows them to manage it in the blockchain. It supports a basic bid/offer system and it can swap the assets automatically between fungible and non-fungible in any possible permutation. It can be expanded by developing new features if required.
- Avatar
The Avatar system is the player’s digital alter ego. It allows the company to manage the Avatar characteristics in order to get a digital version of the player based on his behaviour that is going to be linked to a game element. It can be expanded by developing new features, if required.
Following some algorithmic rules, any app can have access to the user’s behaviour to change its Avatar characteristics, and every significant action can move value from a skill to another.
The Avatar Stats will reflect the sum of all the user’s interaction with all the affiliated apps.
Any app can also store any info into the Avatar, that only the app company can access, and only IF and WHEN the user allows them to.
Any app can request specific known data to avoid data duplication and multiple data update requirements.
