What people seem to be missing here is that this isn't an article written by MMORPG.com, it was written by Samson Mow, CEO of Pixelmatic, which is the developer of Infinite Fleet, the NFT game being shown, and discussed here.
Blockchains may or may not be a better, more secure database than what is currently used in games.
The problem is that its use in gaming always comes along with NFTs and NFTs in gaming are all about selling gamers on the idea that RMT is a good thing and normal... it isn't.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Show me a viable unique use for blockchain that *doesn't* have monetization as it's base. The blockchain technology is essentially a form of distributed database, and that can and has been done before. Nothing it offers, except for the monetization aspects, is unique.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I find it pretty pathetic that this site even acknowledges blockchain / NFT existence. You should cover games that are, you know, not scams.
How can anyone not acknowledge blockchain and NFT existence? NFTs in and of themselves are not a scam. They do exist. Debating whether they have a use in gaming is another thing altogether.
People using blockchain and NFTs to scam others, that is real. But the same can be said for stocks, art, and virtually any commodity. The fact that someone is willing to pay thousands of dollars for an NFT, well, that is just stupidity.
No, NFTs are a scam. You own a receipt to something, but you don't actually own the thing. It is like going to Wal-Mart with a receipt to a microwave you picked up on the ground outside and going in to ask for your money back without the microwave.
They should not be covered just like you don't see piracy covered on this website. They are the same thing. Hell, I would argue that piracy is worse then NFTs.
NFTs are pretty much also old news at this point and the bigger game industry has largely given up on them. The only games that have anything related to NFTs now are literally just scams.
Your analogy actually shows the value of the Blockchain. Each entry on the chain is just a receipt. But it is a receipt that can't be altered, and shows a chain of custody from person to person. So you can't just grab the receipt off the ground and claim ownership because the chain points to a different owner.
As for not owning an NFT, that is no different than any other digital asset. There isn't any physical manifestation of the item, but it still exists in the digital world. The NFT has a unique id to differentiate it from all other digital lookalikes. Just like when I buy a game on Steam, I am purchasing a key that activates the game for digital download. That key is unique and is linked to my account. If Steam shut down tomorrow that key is worthless, but I still own the game.
The whole point of an NFT in gaming is that I could take that ID and and sell it, either through an in-game system, OR on a third-party platform. So when I loot the Sword of Awesomeness, I "own" it and can do what I want with it. The ID passes to the new owner, and a chain of custody is created that shows who the current owner is.
Now, that is how NFTs can work in a game. I do agree that most developers are using it as a buzzword to attract a certain type of person to their game. I also agree that many are doing it with nefarious intentions. But the technology itself is not a scam, it's the people manipulating it that are scammers. Just like a phone isn't trying to scam me, it's the person on the other side of the conversation that's trying to con me out of my money.
I think you misinterpreted what I said and tried to make it sound like you, someone who is clearly invested in NFTs, thinks that they have actual value.
You know what the value of receipt for something you don't actually own is? Nothing. There is a reason you can just copy and paste anyone's bored ape and use it anywhere. The reason is because they don't actually own it. The value is literally made up by people who want to pretend it has value when it does not. See: Every NFT related SCAM crashing and burning.
The steam analogy does not work because you still get to play the game. It has value. NFTs do not have any value other then the value prescribed to them via the blockchain which -- has no real value. You own something that says 'this has x value' but it doesn't actually have real value. The value isn't real, it is made up by a bunch of other nerds on the blockchain that figure it is worth that much. No one will actually buy it for that much. Steam could shut down some day and you no longer have value in those games, but your console could stop working, your operating system could stop supporting a game you play,ect. It is the only strawman argument cryptobros got.
Everything you described in regards to video game NFTs already existed in video games before NFTs existed. We don't need NFTs to sell in game items for real money. Gamers have risen up against NFTs pretty hard and fortunately, we won. Move along. Every attempt at it by any remotely large developer (not these scam devs who make NFT MMOs that 7 people have heard of) has been met with extreme backlash until they just stop focusing on it completely.
The reason that this niche website, in a niche genre of video games, covers NFTs is for sponsorship deals primarily. Most gaming websites don't actually cover NFT games at all for a reason. They are no longer relevant. We have moved on. Gamers have moved on. Now please, lets go back to complaining about battlepasses.
No, I believe it is you who has misinterpreted what I am saying. I, in fact, have zero NFTs, never bought one, and never will. And I have only played one game based on blockchain, which was for a preview article I wrote for this site. I do sometimes write about blockchain and NFT-related stuff, but that doesn't mean I support them in gaming, only that they exist, and I report on them.
I also never claimed that NFT and blockchain add any value to gaming. I never said that they were innovations that were bringing something new to the table. I'm not even suggesting that they are the best way to implement any of the things they can be used for. I merely stated possible uses that wouldn't be part of a scam, which I believe is the only thing you think they are viable for.
NFTs do have a value associated with them. Just because you or I don't believe it has value doesn't change what it is worth. The blockchain doesn't assign that value, people do. Now, NFTs don't have any inherent value. But just like trading cards, for example, if someone believes it is worth $50 and is willing to pay $50, then it is worth $50. If that person no longer believes it has that value, it goes up or down depending on what the next person believes. It doesn't matter if that trading card is paper or digital, it has value. It really is a simple concept.
Show me a viable unique use for blockchain that *doesn't* have monetization as it's base. The blockchain technology is essentially a form of distributed database, and that can and has been done before. Nothing it offers, except for the monetization aspects, is unique.
Show me a viable unique use for blockchain that *doesn't* have monetization as it's base. The blockchain technology is essentially a form of distributed database, and that can and has been done before. Nothing it offers, except for the monetization aspects, is unique.
Fine then. Games have databases that track all sorts of things, right? Don't you hate it when a game server crashes and the resulting rollback means that you lose your last hour or whatever worth of progress?
What a game could do is that every time a server goes down for maintenance, make a full backup copy of the database and start a new chain. When the game is running, every second or so, add a new block to the chain with all of the database transactions from that second. Each block could have a lot of transactions, not necessarily just one, but so long as you make it so that a given character can't be involved in more than one, it won't be ambiguous. That reduces the computational load dramatically as compared to having to hash each transaction separately.
If the server crashes, then some database write likely got interrupted in progress. So verify the chain and see how far you can get. The last valid hash is the last known, valid state of the database, and likely comes immediately before the crash. Thus, players lose basically nothing to the crash, apart from the time that it takes to reboot the server.
Meanwhile, because this logs every database transaction with the ability to verify that it is correct, if there is database corruption or a duping bug or whatever, then you can track down exactly what happened. That allows you to restore the database to the last valid state before the corruption struck, rather than having to either accept a ruined economy from a duping bug or having to roll back much further because you're not sure where things went awry.
If you're using blockchain to image the state of transactions, could you not do that more efficiently with a smaller traditional server that has a rolling window it buffers to? A certain amount of history is useful, and you can always back up those windows to a tertiary database for longer periods of time in case something needs review, and then you can have the tertiary set on company intranet as opposed to connected to game server which then allows you to have a couple layers to verify things against too.
I have no beef with blockchain. What I object to is the monetization. I am sure the tech is useful but what games are using it for is what I object to. Plus like others have already pointed out with far more eloquence the games that currently leverage it are quite terrible games. I have not seen a good application of it thus far and I am loathe to try out games with it.
Quite honestly I am unconvinced as to its need in games and I think it's a hinderance to the enjoyment of most games with it.
Just like when I buy a game on Steam, I am purchasing a key that activates the game for digital download. That key is unique and is linked to my account. If Steam shut down tomorrow that key is worthless, but I still own the game.
If Steam shuts down, they have agreements in place to still give you your game, they are a distributor, not the license issues. They just facilitate the agreement between you and the license issuer. So the actual license issuer is bound by contract between him and Steam to honor YOUR contract between Steam and yourself. Or that's how the legal framework should be set up from what I understood.
Basically the Steam key will not be worthless because it shows a legal connection to somebody else that still exists to fulfill that contract. If the license issuer goes out of business, that's a different story. But you Steam analogy does not hold water in the situation you used it for.
I have no beef with blockchain. What I object to is the monetization. I am sure the tech is useful but what games are using it for is what I object to. Plus like others have already pointed out with far more eloquence the games that currently leverage it are quite terrible games. I have not seen a good application of it thus far and I am loathe to try out games with it.
Quite honestly I am unconvinced as to its need in games and I think it's a hinderance to the enjoyment of most games with it.
I have beef with blockchain in the game, how do I convert the money to crypto blockchain to real money or vice versa? it's like I'm forced to open an account in FTX (bankrupt), blockfi(bankrupt), or mount gox(bankrupt) the list is quite long too not to mention they ask for your real ID, they say it is for safety, but I don't know if they misuse it or not. and yes I'm paranoid about this kind of thing, especially if it's just to play a game. The idea of playing games is to relax, not to get chased by the IRS or the SEC.
Show me a viable unique use for blockchain that *doesn't* have monetization as it's base. The blockchain technology is essentially a form of distributed database, and that can and has been done before. Nothing it offers, except for the monetization aspects, is unique.
Fine then. Games have databases that track all sorts of things, right? Don't you hate it when a game server crashes and the resulting rollback means that you lose your last hour or whatever worth of progress?
What a game could do is that every time a server goes down for maintenance, make a full backup copy of the database and start a new chain. When the game is running, every second or so, add a new block to the chain with all of the database transactions from that second. Each block could have a lot of transactions, not necessarily just one, but so long as you make it so that a given character can't be involved in more than one, it won't be ambiguous. That reduces the computational load dramatically as compared to having to hash each transaction separately.
If the server crashes, then some database write likely got interrupted in progress. So verify the chain and see how far you can get. The last valid hash is the last known, valid state of the database, and likely comes immediately before the crash. Thus, players lose basically nothing to the crash, apart from the time that it takes to reboot the server.
Meanwhile, because this logs every database transaction with the ability to verify that it is correct, if there is database corruption or a duping bug or whatever, then you can track down exactly what happened. That allows you to restore the database to the last valid state before the corruption struck, rather than having to either accept a ruined economy from a duping bug or having to roll back much further because you're not sure where things went awry.
Yes but does any blockchain game do that? That's the whole issue, I think it is fair for gamers to question that blockchain will ever enhance a game when all we see is it being used for NFT's and crypto.
Just like when I buy a game on Steam, I am purchasing a key that activates the game for digital download. That key is unique and is linked to my account. If Steam shut down tomorrow that key is worthless, but I still own the game.
If Steam shuts down, they have agreements in place to still give you your game, they are a distributor, not the license issues. They just facilitate the agreement between you and the license issuer. So the actual license issuer is bound by contract between him and Steam to honor YOUR contract between Steam and yourself. Or that's how the legal framework should be set up from what I understood.
Basically the Steam key will not be worthless because it shows a legal connection to somebody else that still exists to fulfill that contract. If the license issuer goes out of business, that's a different story. But you Steam analogy does not hold water in the situation you used it for.
You can play Steam games offline, not all of them of course.
Can it work? It can. Do we want it to work? Not really. Did we ask for it? Nope. Do we want another layer of crap added to gaming that isn't wanted or needed? Nope.
Just like when I buy a game on Steam, I am purchasing a key that activates the game for digital download. That key is unique and is linked to my account. If Steam shut down tomorrow that key is worthless, but I still own the game.
If Steam shuts down, they have agreements in place to still give you your game, they are a distributor, not the license issues. They just facilitate the agreement between you and the license issuer. So the actual license issuer is bound by contract between him and Steam to honor YOUR contract between Steam and yourself. Or that's how the legal framework should be set up from what I understood.
Basically the Steam key will not be worthless because it shows a legal connection to somebody else that still exists to fulfill that contract. If the license issuer goes out of business, that's a different story. But you Steam analogy does not hold water in the situation you used it for.
For those games your contract is directly with Valve, not with the party who sold that game on Steam. If Steam were ever to shut down, you'd lose access to those games.
But on the other hand, it also means that there are cases where Steam continues offering you the game even after original publisher pulls it from sale. Valve seems to be very generous about providing you with downloads and Steam's services for all games that you have ever purchased, as long as it's a game that can still work after original publisher shuts down their servers.
If you're using blockchain to image the state of transactions, could you not do that more efficiently with a smaller traditional server that has a rolling window it buffers to? A certain amount of history is useful, and you can always back up those windows to a tertiary database for longer periods of time in case something needs review, and then you can have the tertiary set on company intranet as opposed to connected to game server which then allows you to have a couple layers to verify things against too.
If you want a database that can recover after server crash and can be reverted back to large number of previous points in history, then blockchain is good option for those kinds of situations.
I'd say you can't save money or resources by doing that with some other tech instead of blockchain. However since we're talking about games, you can save a lot of money and resources by deciding that kind of recoverability is an overkill.
I'd say that recovering from a database loss is perhaps the very last use the proponents of these systems wish to use blockchain for. Their main interest is in selling things to the players and not to safeguard the database. Their main interest is to make gambling systems that will earn them sick amounts of money from the idiots who buy into this.
Bored Ape 2.0 here we come. All the artificial inflation in value of rubbish is what we really need in our gaming.
Meanwhile, because this logs every database transaction with the ability to verify that it is correct, if there is database corruption or a duping bug or whatever, then you can track down exactly what happened. That allows you to restore the database to the last valid state before the corruption struck, rather than having to either accept a ruined economy from a duping bug or having to roll back much further because you're not sure where things went awry.
Would you need to roll the server back still?
Or could you surgically remove only tainted items and transactions?
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If you're using blockchain to image the state of transactions, could you not do that more efficiently with a smaller traditional server that has a rolling window it buffers to? A certain amount of history is useful, and you can always back up those windows to a tertiary database for longer periods of time in case something needs review, and then you can have the tertiary set on company intranet as opposed to connected to game server which then allows you to have a couple layers to verify things against too.
If you want a database that can recover after server crash and can be reverted back to large number of previous points in history, then blockchain is good option for those kinds of situations.
I'd say you can't save money or resources by doing that with some other tech instead of blockchain. However since we're talking about games, you can save a lot of money and resources by deciding that kind of recoverability is an overkill.
That's what the tertiary set mentioned is for. "Offline" racks that are effectively just drives you're storing legacy transaction data on. You're not paying any kind of cost outside the initial hardware to store or access it at that point.
Show me a viable unique use for blockchain that *doesn't* have monetization as it's base. The blockchain technology is essentially a form of distributed database, and that can and has been done before. Nothing it offers, except for the monetization aspects, is unique.
Fine then. Games have databases that track all sorts of things, right? Don't you hate it when a game server crashes and the resulting rollback means that you lose your last hour or whatever worth of progress?
What a game could do is that every time a server goes down for maintenance, make a full backup copy of the database and start a new chain. When the game is running, every second or so, add a new block to the chain with all of the database transactions from that second. Each block could have a lot of transactions, not necessarily just one, but so long as you make it so that a given character can't be involved in more than one, it won't be ambiguous. That reduces the computational load dramatically as compared to having to hash each transaction separately.
If the server crashes, then some database write likely got interrupted in progress. So verify the chain and see how far you can get. The last valid hash is the last known, valid state of the database, and likely comes immediately before the crash. Thus, players lose basically nothing to the crash, apart from the time that it takes to reboot the server.
Meanwhile, because this logs every database transaction with the ability to verify that it is correct, if there is database corruption or a duping bug or whatever, then you can track down exactly what happened. That allows you to restore the database to the last valid state before the corruption struck, rather than having to either accept a ruined economy from a duping bug or having to roll back much further because you're not sure where things went awry.
Fair enough, a non-monetary use. Every database I've ever worked with has some form of audit trail and recovery mechanism. Maybe a distributed transaction log is a thing that could be done by blockchain, but it wouldn't be unique, just replicating something already accomplished by traditional technology.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Show me a viable unique use for blockchain that *doesn't* have monetization as it's base. The blockchain technology is essentially a form of distributed database, and that can and has been done before. Nothing it offers, except for the monetization aspects, is unique.
Fine then. Games have databases that track all sorts of things, right? Don't you hate it when a game server crashes and the resulting rollback means that you lose your last hour or whatever worth of progress?
What a game could do is that every time a server goes down for maintenance, make a full backup copy of the database and start a new chain. When the game is running, every second or so, add a new block to the chain with all of the database transactions from that second. Each block could have a lot of transactions, not necessarily just one, but so long as you make it so that a given character can't be involved in more than one, it won't be ambiguous. That reduces the computational load dramatically as compared to having to hash each transaction separately.
If the server crashes, then some database write likely got interrupted in progress. So verify the chain and see how far you can get. The last valid hash is the last known, valid state of the database, and likely comes immediately before the crash. Thus, players lose basically nothing to the crash, apart from the time that it takes to reboot the server.
Meanwhile, because this logs every database transaction with the ability to verify that it is correct, if there is database corruption or a duping bug or whatever, then you can track down exactly what happened. That allows you to restore the database to the last valid state before the corruption struck, rather than having to either accept a ruined economy from a duping bug or having to roll back much further because you're not sure where things went awry.
Fair enough, a non-monetary use. Every database I've ever worked with has some form of audit trail and recovery mechanism. Maybe a distributed transaction log is a thing that could be done by blockchain, but it wouldn't be unique, just replicating something already accomplished by traditional technology.
What you're missing though is, depending on the chain, blockchain is written and and housed on a decentralized platform. Because the database is "immutable" with a public record of transactions, anyone utilizing the platform can read the history, and recreate it.
That's how serverless games like 9 chronicles and xaya work.
"Nine Chronicles is a 100% decentralized free-to-play RPG that is also the first title to be developed with Libplanet. A major characteristic of Libplanet is that it enables the game to run on a P2P network of players without requiring any central server to host. The entire game, from crafting an item to complex battles, takes place fully on-chain. This means that the game can continue to run smoothly even without depending on the game company."
Think of MMO's where the company can shut down, but the game continues in perpetuity, and even in the case of 9 Chronicles, development continues through "forks" of development.
9 Chronicles built the decentralized game, before they had tokens or monetization in place. It's a very interesting use case, and Xaya is actually a game engine that makes it easy for other developers to do the same with more complex games.
Show me a viable unique use for blockchain that *doesn't* have monetization as it's base. The blockchain technology is essentially a form of distributed database, and that can and has been done before. Nothing it offers, except for the monetization aspects, is unique.
The blockchain is just a public database. Like any tool, it can be used in many ways. A simple (non monetization based use) of the blockchain would be to prevent duping. Using the blockchain as a receipt of the creation of an item, and then the tracking of the item prevents duping, and makes the ownership semi public as well. Is this necessary? I don't think so... but it is a simple example that took a whole 5 seconds of though.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the blockchain. It is just that the people that are primarily using it are doing it as a way to trick others out of their money....
Show me a viable unique use for blockchain that *doesn't* have monetization as it's base. The blockchain technology is essentially a form of distributed database, and that can and has been done before. Nothing it offers, except for the monetization aspects, is unique.
Fine then. Games have databases that track all sorts of things, right? Don't you hate it when a game server crashes and the resulting rollback means that you lose your last hour or whatever worth of progress?
What a game could do is that every time a server goes down for maintenance, make a full backup copy of the database and start a new chain. When the game is running, every second or so, add a new block to the chain with all of the database transactions from that second. Each block could have a lot of transactions, not necessarily just one, but so long as you make it so that a given character can't be involved in more than one, it won't be ambiguous. That reduces the computational load dramatically as compared to having to hash each transaction separately.
If the server crashes, then some database write likely got interrupted in progress. So verify the chain and see how far you can get. The last valid hash is the last known, valid state of the database, and likely comes immediately before the crash. Thus, players lose basically nothing to the crash, apart from the time that it takes to reboot the server.
Meanwhile, because this logs every database transaction with the ability to verify that it is correct, if there is database corruption or a duping bug or whatever, then you can track down exactly what happened. That allows you to restore the database to the last valid state before the corruption struck, rather than having to either accept a ruined economy from a duping bug or having to roll back much further because you're not sure where things went awry.
Fair enough, a non-monetary use. Every database I've ever worked with has some form of audit trail and recovery mechanism. Maybe a distributed transaction log is a thing that could be done by blockchain, but it wouldn't be unique, just replicating something already accomplished by traditional technology.
What you're missing though is, depending on the chain, blockchain is written and and housed on a decentralized platform. Because the database is "immutable" with a public record of transactions, anyone utilizing the platform can read the history, and recreate it.
That's how serverless games like 9 chronicles and xaya work.
"Nine Chronicles is a 100% decentralized free-to-play RPG that is also the first title to be developed with Libplanet. A major characteristic of Libplanet is that it enables the game to run on a P2P network of players without requiring any central server to host. The entire game, from crafting an item to complex battles, takes place fully on-chain. This means that the game can continue to run smoothly even without depending on the game company."
Think of MMO's where the company can shut down, but the game continues in perpetuity, and even in the case of 9 Chronicles, development continues through "forks" of development.
9 Chronicles built the decentralized game, before they had tokens or monetization in place. It's a very interesting use case, and Xaya is actually a game engine that makes it easy for other developers to do the same with more complex games.
That's about equivalent to opensource development.
Think that butts heads with is monetization in a different way, in that if others can fork code and develop/host their own iterations, it splinters development and control away from the developers themselves.
That's fine for free creativity, but it swings problems the other direction in terms of operating a product, especially any kind of title that might plan itself to be a live/ongoing service.
That also implies a lot of additional clutter as variants are created, updated, abandoned, and linger on an ever-growing ledger.
If you're using blockchain to image the state of transactions, could you not do that more efficiently with a smaller traditional server that has a rolling window it buffers to? A certain amount of history is useful, and you can always back up those windows to a tertiary database for longer periods of time in case something needs review, and then you can have the tertiary set on company intranet as opposed to connected to game server which then allows you to have a couple layers to verify things against too.
I'm not saying that the blockchain approach is the only way to do it, the best way to do it, or even that you should do it at all. I am saying that it uses blockchain, isn't part of monetization (which was Mendel's requirement), and isn't an obviously ridiculous thing to do.
Still, needing a separate server that hopefully doesn't crash at the same time is an extra expense. The blockchain approach could be done with just software and maybe an extra hard drive.
Comments
The problem is that its use in gaming always comes along with NFTs and NFTs in gaming are all about selling gamers on the idea that RMT is a good thing and normal... it isn't.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I also never claimed that NFT and blockchain add any value to gaming. I never said that they were innovations that were bringing something new to the table. I'm not even suggesting that they are the best way to implement any of the things they can be used for. I merely stated possible uses that wouldn't be part of a scam, which I believe is the only thing you think they are viable for.
NFTs do have a value associated with them. Just because you or I don't believe it has value doesn't change what it is worth. The blockchain doesn't assign that value, people do. Now, NFTs don't have any inherent value. But just like trading cards, for example, if someone believes it is worth $50 and is willing to pay $50, then it is worth $50. If that person no longer believes it has that value, it goes up or down depending on what the next person believes. It doesn't matter if that trading card is paper or digital, it has value. It really is a simple concept.
What a game could do is that every time a server goes down for maintenance, make a full backup copy of the database and start a new chain. When the game is running, every second or so, add a new block to the chain with all of the database transactions from that second. Each block could have a lot of transactions, not necessarily just one, but so long as you make it so that a given character can't be involved in more than one, it won't be ambiguous. That reduces the computational load dramatically as compared to having to hash each transaction separately.
If the server crashes, then some database write likely got interrupted in progress. So verify the chain and see how far you can get. The last valid hash is the last known, valid state of the database, and likely comes immediately before the crash. Thus, players lose basically nothing to the crash, apart from the time that it takes to reboot the server.
Meanwhile, because this logs every database transaction with the ability to verify that it is correct, if there is database corruption or a duping bug or whatever, then you can track down exactly what happened. That allows you to restore the database to the last valid state before the corruption struck, rather than having to either accept a ruined economy from a duping bug or having to roll back much further because you're not sure where things went awry.
If you're using blockchain to image the state of transactions, could you not do that more efficiently with a smaller traditional server that has a rolling window it buffers to? A certain amount of history is useful, and you can always back up those windows to a tertiary database for longer periods of time in case something needs review, and then you can have the tertiary set on company intranet as opposed to connected to game server which then allows you to have a couple layers to verify things against too.
Quite honestly I am unconvinced as to its need in games and I think it's a hinderance to the enjoyment of most games with it.
If Steam shuts down, they have agreements in place to still give you your game, they are a distributor, not the license issues. They just facilitate the agreement between you and the license issuer. So the actual license issuer is bound by contract between him and Steam to honor YOUR contract between Steam and yourself. Or that's how the legal framework should be set up from what I understood.
Basically the Steam key will not be worthless because it shows a legal connection to somebody else that still exists to fulfill that contract. If the license issuer goes out of business, that's a different story. But you Steam analogy does not hold water in the situation you used it for.
Games that do not have their own EULA or don't require their own account are governed by Steam Subscriber Agreement:
https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement
For those games your contract is directly with Valve, not with the party who sold that game on Steam. If Steam were ever to shut down, you'd lose access to those games.
But on the other hand, it also means that there are cases where Steam continues offering you the game even after original publisher pulls it from sale. Valve seems to be very generous about providing you with downloads and Steam's services for all games that you have ever purchased, as long as it's a game that can still work after original publisher shuts down their servers.
I'd say you can't save money or resources by doing that with some other tech instead of blockchain. However since we're talking about games, you can save a lot of money and resources by deciding that kind of recoverability is an overkill.
Bored Ape 2.0 here we come. All the artificial inflation in value of rubbish is what we really need in our gaming.
Or could you surgically remove only tainted items and transactions?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I suspect they are doing all the storage in their mysterious "layer 2" tech and then maybe writing the location of the DB using Bitcoin once a day.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
That's how serverless games like 9 chronicles and xaya work.
"Nine Chronicles is a 100% decentralized free-to-play RPG that is also the first title to be developed with Libplanet. A major characteristic of Libplanet is that it enables the game to run on a P2P network of players without requiring any central server to host. The entire game, from crafting an item to complex battles, takes place fully on-chain. This means that the game can continue to run smoothly even without depending on the game company."
Think of MMO's where the company can shut down, but the game continues in perpetuity, and even in the case of 9 Chronicles, development continues through "forks" of development.
9 Chronicles built the decentralized game, before they had tokens or monetization in place. It's a very interesting use case, and Xaya is actually a game engine that makes it easy for other developers to do the same with more complex games.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the blockchain. It is just that the people that are primarily using it are doing it as a way to trick others out of their money....
Think that butts heads with is monetization in a different way, in that if others can fork code and develop/host their own iterations, it splinters development and control away from the developers themselves.
That's fine for free creativity, but it swings problems the other direction in terms of operating a product, especially any kind of title that might plan itself to be a live/ongoing service.
That also implies a lot of additional clutter as variants are created, updated, abandoned, and linger on an ever-growing ledger.
Still, needing a separate server that hopefully doesn't crash at the same time is an extra expense. The blockchain approach could be done with just software and maybe an extra hard drive.