Exploring the Blockchain
Several months into Steemit, I became increasingly interested in the nature of blockchain and how it is innovating diverse sectors today. So much talk in the crypto-sphere is centered around the growing economy and market while a great deal of the creative knowledge doesn't seem to permeate into the public. I think some cryptos are really worth looking at, not just because of their market potential, but the unique way they solve an industry problem by applying blockchain tech.
There is already a tremendous amount of content that deals with how crypto and blockchain transform the financial, informational, and security sectors. What I'm more interested in at this point is how emerging cryptos are dealing with specific problems, niche markets, and industries that affect everyone's daily lives.
The first one I'll be looking at is the gaming industry, in particular video games and phone application programs. I've always been a fervent gamer ever since my uncle bought me the Super Nintendo in the mid 90s. Since then I've become fairly fluent in how the gaming industry works from console platforms to the rage of Free-to-Play games like Candy Crush we see everyone hunched over today. Much has changed since I got that first cartridge console and although the types of games and their audiences as diversified, the industry has only hardened to a single mostly corporate trajectory.
Needless to say, there's an incredible amount of progress to be done in this sector and Blockchain could be (and probably should be) the real catalyst.
GAMECREDITS and the First Cross-Gaming Crypto
I won't go into too much detail of how GAMECREDITS work. For that I highly recommend going to their 
GAMECREDITS essentially allows you to mine and trade crypto while gaming. The structure is fascinating as it basically substitutes 1-for-1 a centralized credit system with a decentralized crypto, and that swap alone, along with all the potential benefits of blockchain smart contracts, transparency, etc. will revolutionize the gaming industry very soon.
There have been a few prior attempts at employing games to develop crypto like Huntercoin and Motocoin. What sets the Gamecredits team apart is tackling this from a larger scope, applying their blockchain to not only specific games but also a platform equivalent to the Google App and iTunes stores.
Right now, the team behind GAMECREDITS is preparing to launch Mobile.Go, a game marketing platform similar to the ones Google and Apple uses. It is to be seen how quickly and effectively both the game development community and international community of gamers jumps onto this technology.
In the meanwhile, here are some, among many, extant problems of the gaming world that I would like explicitly addressed and for me personally, will be the key points of success or failure as GAMECREDITS transitions gaming to the crypto world.
Major Problems in the Gaming World
There hasn't been too much explanation outside of short videos of what GAMECREDITS and other game-based cryptos can do so I wanted to shared my perspective on major faults of current gaming sectors to see if we can muster up some impactful convo -
1 - Current gaming “credits” are incredibly centralized with no opportunity for transition.
If you spend hundreds of hours gaining points and buying tokens for a game like Candy Crush, they MUST stay in Candy Crush and can never be transferred over to Angry Birds or Clash of Kingdoms, even though the same fiat currency was used in purchasing them separately. This is an incredible problem that, though highly profitable for singular corporations, leaves the average user in a black hole and discourages long-term commitment to a gaming community.
- Source: Sekg
2 - The “Electronic-Sports” industry is highly controlled.
Many video games like Starcraft, Hearthstone, League of Legends, and Overwatch have become most famous for their competitive events organized by tournament organizers. However the way in which the game is played and how prizes are paid out are still left outside the players' hands. One thing that GAMECREDITS has pledged to do is allow groups of people to bet on their own tournaments and host personal events. It also encourages players to establish and sustain their own personal 'arenas' and don't have to depend on the high-costed organization of corporations.
3 - Third-Market parties are opaque and manipulative.
With any connective game that uses objects and artifacts, from offline Magic: The Gathering trading card game to PC-room/PC방Counterstrike leagues, the amount of players, in-game items, and actual currency being exchanged has spawned dozens of 3rd-party monetization systems that buy, sell, and trade your gaming assets. Unfortunately, the market is almost entirely determined by the price set between themselves and what the player base (you and I) is willing to pay. This causes economic obstruction and things like “price-memory” are notoriously unhealthy and distort what things actually (should) cost. It also allows people to single-handedly manipulate prices with buyouts and artificial hype.
- Tides of Numenera raised $4.2 million from 74,000 backers on Kickstarter alone.
4 - Centralized gaming markets box out independent or “indie” developers.
After Kickstarter was launched, we saw globally successful indie games such as Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera that were only made possible due to crowdfunding. The “Triple-A” gaming market that plays with budgets in the hundreds of millions are often negligent of incredibly robust niche genres. A decentralized monetization platform for games would allow independent game developers to not only raise funds from actual users in the same vein as Kickstarter, but also inherently support their projects through Alpha and Beta testing as the gamers produce token in-game.
Decentralizing Capital
Over the last decade, the global capital market has really wrapped its tentacles around the gaming industry. What used to be a basement hobby has transformed into a mega-billion effort on our TVs to our Smartphones. It is time for disruption.
- Source: Youtube/South Park
Again, I encourage you to follow the development and conversation around GAMECREDITS. They're currently finishing up their big ICO phase and prepping for their platform launch.
Let me know what you think below! Game/STEEM on!
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