How Blockchain Games Empower Players

In most games, gamers obtain their in-game items and characters either by purchasing them or by spending hundreds of hours in the game. Gamers take pride in their items, achievements, and even usernames but these all live in the closed ecosystem of the game. Gamers have yet to experience the concept of true player ownership.

With the arrival of blockchain technology, gamers can tangibly own in-game assets and achievements. As blockchain gaming unfolds further, it will likely be defined by these two new concepts: virtual sentimentalism and cross-game functionality.  Let’s take a further look at what these mean and the positive impact they’ll have on gamers.

Virtual Sentimentalism

Virtual sentimentalism will mean that gamers can finally have true ownership of in-game assets. Historically, all game components exist solely in the ecosystem of the game.  For example, the all-time high score on a Pac-Man machine at an arcade lives on the machine itself.  If that machine is retired, the accomplishments of all the players are gone as well.

Similarly, If a developer pulled a game off the market or shut down their servers, any in-game achievements or items gamers had earned also disappeared. With blockchain, gamers can rest assured that their in-game assets are stored securely on the blockchain and can’t be taken away.

This is a huge win for gamers who have long been at the mercy of game studios. Now, gamers can own their in-game items outright and don’t have to worry about them disappearing.

In addition, accessing items and achievements from games played 20+ years ago has been nearly impossible, until now. With blockchain, gamers will be able to access their in-game assets from any game, at any time.

Cross-Game Functionality

Another exciting opportunity with blockchain gaming is cross-game functionality. A gamer will be able to use assets from one game in another game, removing the limitation that achievements and assets must be linked to just one game.

For example, imagine you’re playing a dungeon crawler and you earn a sword as a reward. With blockchain, you could take that sword and use it in another game that supports items from the dungeon crawler.

With blockchain, gamers will be able to take their in-game assets in the form of NFTs with them across different games and platforms. This creates a new level of interoperability and opens up a whole new world of possibilities for gamers.

Empowering Gamers

Blockchain gaming will allow game developers to derive benefits from the relationships between gamers and their virtual assets.  A game developer can choose to reward players for accomplishments in their game or a different game entirely. This could take the form of an in-game item, currency, or access to exclusive content. While this creates an ecosystem for both developers and players to thrive, the greatest net benefits go to the players.

This new level of freedom for gamers creates a whole new world of possibilities and should be embraced, even fought for.

About Stardust

Stardust is a SaaS, blockchain agnostic, platform that offers a seamless “low code” integration of NFTs for game studios. To learn more, you can schedule time with our sales team here.

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