I was a gamer (and probably still is), that enjoy a fun and challenging games. I still remember the last time I played a game (PES) was around months ago. Slowly but surely, I feel like most of my time playing game are wasted. I don't get anything in return except the fun, but I do need money to keep surviving. I might be able to participate in some competition, but I doubt I have any skills to do that. It would be great if I can exchange my achievement on any games that I played into real money.
It seems like what I hope to happen will really come true very soon. GameXCoin, a new blockchain start-up wanted to decentralized the gaming industry right to the core. Who are they? What are they trying to solve and how?
The Problems
Intermediaries with too much power: Between the developer and players, exist a group of intermediaries (marketing platform, game market, distribution platform, media and etc) that has too much power in the gaming industry. That powers are reflected in the staggering amount of money that needs to be spent on marketing rather than game development. The sad news is, there is no guarantee that extensive marketing equals to big profits for game developers. They have to pay more but got less.
The current outlook of gaming industry
Inflexibility of in-game currency: There are a lot of games which has its natives currency. However, this in-game currency is not really useful or tradable by players because it's exclusive and hard to transfer to others wallet. This lack of flexibility causes many in-game currencies to be worthless without any repeated use. The only way to make game currency to be flexible is when we can trade them quickly and securely without any additional fees.
Short life-span for games: The number of games is exploding, yet at the same time their lifespan is decreasing quickly. Most games become obsolete after a few weeks or months. It is hard to create a game which is still enjoyable to play for years, even if you've successfully finished it for a few times. Developers face difficulties because they have to make profits to continue producing their development, but it is not possible if your games are only going to be played for a few months. Seling additional DLC might help for a little while, but does that really the solution for this?
Games lifespan is steadily decreasing.
High cost to develop and market a game: As I've mentioned before, there is a huge demand for high-quality games but there is not enough support and revenue source for developers to provide that. Marketing consumes way too much money compared to the game development. Ironically, it seems like extensive marketing doesn't necessarily mean high revenue. There must be a solution for a new way of game discoveries or marketing, which must be able to drastically reduce the cost of marketing but still give enough exposure to new games or features.
In-game asset trading is risky: Because there is no easy solution for players who wanted to trade with each other, there is a huge risk in trading game assets or in-game currency. The most famous might be a scam or a fraud in the trading process. There is no guarantee that in the future there won't be anymore scam or fraud like this, especially if there's no platform where people can trade securely and quickly like an exchange. To put it simply, we actually need an exchange for game assets.
The Solutions
Decentralized Ecosystem: GameXCoin is building a decentralized gaming ecosystem with blockchain and smart contracts. It aims to connect the most important stakeholder in the gaming industry, developers and players directly without requiring additional parties. Here are some key solutions or innovations that GameXCoin promised to delivers.
The new outlook of gaming industry proposed by GameXCoin
For players:
Wealth accumulation by using in-game assets that they collect: Players can accumulate wealth by playing their games. They can collect collectible, or other items and make its assets that can be sold to other parties via an exchange. In another word, you can play games, collect something and then sell it later or now. Just like a regular business. Anybody can do it quickly, so you don't have to go through the hassle of finding a buyer or seller which is happening right now.
Safer trading experience: Because GameXCoin utilizes smart contracts, the risk of any fraud or abuse by third parties or your partners will likely decrease. You can set a smart contract which you both agreed on, specifying details such as the item name, ranks, properties and etc. If the details don't match, your funds will be sent back to you. On the other hand, the seller will get their funds asap when the details are matched accordingly. Trade your in-game assets quickly, securely, with little to no fees.
For developers:
Easier player acquisition: GameX ecosystem is very useful for new developers. Unlike other platforms, with GameX, you can create your own tokens by collateralizing some GXC coins and then run a campaign to market your game and increase more awareness. You can give tokens for new players to join and play your games so that it will be easy for you to gain new loyal players. As long as your game is good, they'll keep playing it regularly. Because tokenization happens directly with smart contracts, there are no additional fees to be paid. In other words, you only spend what is required.
Increase engagement level: GameX is very useful to increase player engagement with your games or yourself. Instead of giving tokens to attract new players, you can also reward users for their achievement. For example, rewards them with 100 tokens after they reach a Legendary level on your fighting game, and so on. With developers creativity, they can build an engagement mechanism with GameXCoin as the foundation.
Distributing their game: Another potential usage of GameXCoin is as a game distribution platform like Steam. Rather than listing your game on Steam with some fees, you can list or distribute your game via GameXCoin. Players or potential players will be able to use your tokens or GameXCoin native currency to buy your game. With this distribution mechanism, developers will be able to deliver their game to the players as soon as they wish. Quick and simple, yet elegant.
Lower commision fees: Because there will be no intermediaries. GameXCoin will help developers to develop their game by decreasing the commision, and if possible, without any fees at all. There won't be a lot of commission as transactions are processed through the blockchain. This is why using blockchain is greatly effective, even using bitcoin blockchain, we're able to transfer more than 100 millions with very little fees (less than $1).
Additional revenues: Even if there is little to no fees gained from transactions, developers will be able to gain additional revenue from fees collected from P2P transactions. In other words, holding GXC coin will give them a passive income which can be used to develop their games further. This is a very amazing breakthrough, especially for indie developers who might not have a lot of capital or limited fundings.
The potential of the gaming industry is predicted to increase steadily
The Ecosystem
GameXCoin ecosystem consists of several parties. Every parties below, act to fulfill or achieve their own purpose (gain profits, and etc) but as a whole ecosystem, they're the one who makes sure that the ecosystem keeps running as intended. These are the parties in GameXCoin ecosystem.
Block Producers: As the name suggests, this is the one who's responsible to create and verify block and provide the required network resources (nodes, blockchain copy and etc). For their participation and contribution (as long as they're following the consensus rules) they'll be rewarded with GXC coins.
dGame: dGame is like a dApps on Ethereum blockchain. dGame or decentralized game is a game built and run on top of GameXCoin blockchain. This is what is developed by developers and played by players. dGame will utilize tokens that are minted or produced by the developers (the name, details or properties is designed by the developers just like any other tokens). They'll do that by collateralizing GXC coins first which can be purchased from company reserve or exchange. This is why currency in dGame can be exchanged with each other because they're built on top of the same blockchain.
Players: Players are the one who plays dGame, or to put it simply, gamers. They'll get rewards (depends on the game that they played) and they'll be able to use tokens to buy or interact with the gaming ecosystem as a whole. There are a lot of options for gamers actually. For example, just enjoy playing a game or make profits from it by getting an item and then sell it to other players.
GXC Holder: In its simplest sense, GXC holder is anybody who has GXC in their wallets. It can be a player, developer or block producer, or simply a GXC holder. They can vote for block producers, just like in any other dPoS based blockchain.
The cycle in GameXCoin Ecosystem
GXC Blockchain
GameXCoin is going to build a blockchain by forking EOS source code. Yes, they're going to fork EOS and build their own blockchain. There are several reasons to do so.
First of all, it solves the dependency issue. If they're releasing tokens and depends on other blockchain networks, like Ethereum, it is quite possible that the progress of the platform will depend a lot on the main network. If the Ethereum network got congested, it is possible that gamers or developers experience is not as fun as when the network is quite free from traffic.
Another reason is to solve the scalability issue. According to them, EOS blockchain is one of the most scalable blockchains because it can process thousands of transactions per seconds. It is possible that those throughputs won't fully utilize while there are not so many players, but when the platform went mainstream, it is very likely that thousands of transactions are required to make sure everyone can trade or access the platform without any trouble.
The third reason, because they need to allow game developers to release their own tokens while at the same time maintaining flexibility between token trading. This can be achieved only if they have their own blockchain. The atomic swap might help, but then there won't be enough demand for the ecosystem.
The block producer
The consensus rules will be based on a dPoS algorithm. There will be a block producer that will verify and confirm transactions in a block for every 3 seconds. The block producer consist of 10 game developer, 10 community voted entities and 1 supernode (Blockchain Ventures, Inc), amounting to 21 block producers in general.
Because they're based on dPoS, one thing that should be worried about is about centralization. It would be very great if GXC can ensure that every block producer won't do any malicious activities by applying strict rules and punishment when they're found to be abusing their power. A KYC/AML for block producers might sound very extreme, but it can be considered too. Hopefully, there will be no such entities that abuse their power and cause damage for players and developers who wanted to enjoy developing and playing in GXC ecosystem.
Conclusion
GameXCoin address several issues in the gaming industry. It aims to provide a better platform for key stakeholders (players and developers) by removing any intermediaries that make game distribution and experience ineffective and not fun. By adopting the most scalable blockchain infrastructure (according to them), they wanted to be one of the major players in the gaming industry who protect and help developers and players.
If you wanted to read more about them, see these links below:
GameXCoin Website: https://www.gamexcoin.io/
GameXCoin Whitepaper: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bPi-aXCMBQs0by1wLw2jRgFQ9gHxN9JO
This content is created for a potential reward from GameXCoin. Readers should do their own research and they should be responsible for their own actions. They're also suggested to read the whitepaper and other materials on their own. This content is created by joniboini (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1275282). My ETH address is 0x98431802e341318d06763d2c4be5bbd9eeaf1ebf.