In 2018, DMR Business Statistics predicted the industry would be worth $60 billion by 2020, based on the year blockchain spent. Only in-game, cryptocurrencies have been hailed as the answer to making in-game transactions easier and safer, with the potential to boost engagement and attract new users.
In recent years, brands such as PayPal, Red Bull, and Swarovski have chosen to use tokens as tools to gain marketing insights from audiences or reward employees for their innovation. Payments giant PayPal has yet to embrace blockchain technology on its commercial platform, but online technology site Cheddar recently reported that the company has launched a program to reward employees for innovating into crypto tokens
Many small businesses in gaming have attempted to implement real money as online gambling in cryptocurrencies to avoid licensing and working with banks, which of course is illegal. Some companies have also been trying to build their own game stores with the aim of reselling gaming and in-game assets and offering their own loyalty, rewards, and advertising plans. All of this is based on their own internal crypto/token.
Social messaging company Kik previously used cryptocurrencies as a reward-based system to encourage interaction within its community. Recently, however, the company turned its attention to mobile games, and announced a partnership with Unity Technologies, which makes the cryptocurrency Kin SDK for Unity available on the Unity asset store. As a result of the collaboration, Unity developers can easily integrate Kin into mobile games, allowing users to continue to play through the P2P experience, rewarding social interactions and creating "stickier" social networks.
Dublin-based social casino operator Kama Games ran token sales in the second half of 2018, but unlike other companies involved in token sales, the move to cryptocurrency/blockchain had little to do with money. Kama Games did not attempt to attract interest or financial support from investors. It also did not seek speculation regarding the tokens and did not intend to list on cryptocurrency exchanges.
Instead, the sale was an opportunity to test the "water" of the blockchain industry and discover whether the demand for token purchases is as widespread as they have come to believe. Also, it will answer the question of who will the token sale satisfy if they repeat the practice? That is, it will answer the question of who will it satisfy, the players on their main app, Focus, or simply the few who speak up small but resolutely?
KamaGames also wanted to increase player retention and loyalty as well as revenue. Their goal was to offer exciting promotional events while attracting a new type of audience and re-engaging expired players. Tokens were created to allow players to stay on the app every day, hold tokens, and receive bonus chips. The token ratio to in-game virtual chips increases by 25% each month, and holders will also receive additional daily bonuses for the first six months.
According to BlockchainGamerbiz, out of 33 game tokens tracked in 2018, the average value of tokens totaled 84% lower. Similarly, Kama Games found token sales were less than the most pessimistic forecasts. We found that developing social casino products on blockchain makes little sense, given the priorities of most social casino players in terms of simplicity and speed. Blockchain doesn't add any of these.
Beyond this, the lack of a blockchain to handle the daily volume of transactions on apps like Kama Games' Pokerist presents a further obstacle to the success of the technology in gaming, somewhere in a region of 1.5 million people per minute.
KamaGames also uses certified random number generators (RNGs), with many unanswered questions regarding their current use on the blockchain. The main concern is that it could make it more predictable which ones RNGs of course defeat.
While it is clear from recent innovations in PayPal that tokens have the potential to be effective as a reward-based system, questions about the value of tokens on social gaming platforms have still been raised since the sale of Kama Games tokens. While the conversation about blockchain and cryptocurrencies may not disappear anytime soon, it is a clear indicator that they may not be widely adopted by the gaming industry in the near future. 바둑이게임