Epic says it’s ‘open’ to blockchain games after Steam bans them • Hacker News Board

Re: Epic says it’s ‘open’ to blockchain games after Steam bans them

#21

Post by jobigoud » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 12:33 PM UTC

taejo wrote: post #5

jobigoud wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtual land. You could have a persistent game world with ownership rights and then multiple unrelated games using the public information about who owns what. Club membership. Similarly multiple unrelated games could verify that a user is a member of an external organisation to grant certain in-game privileges.

Why do you need distributed consensus to do that, though? What's wrong with a database on a server?

The "multiple unrelated games" part. You can have game studios/creators that don't know each other build upon an existing persistent shared world without opening their database/server to the other studios.

Re: Epic says it’s ‘open’ to blockchain games after Steam bans them

#22

Post by jobigoud » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 12:35 PM UTC

Darmody wrote: post #14

vladvasiliu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it help with the "publisher doesn't want to maintain a server for that old game anymore" situation?

If the publisher shuts the servers down, it doesn't matter if a Blockchain days you're the owner of an item.

It matters because it means the community or another publisher can pick up where the original one left and all the data is still there. Or you can build an alternate world and carry users over.

Re: Epic says it’s ‘open’ to blockchain games after Steam bans them

#23

Post by vintermann » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 12:46 PM UTC

jobigoud wrote: post #4

dbavaria wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there other, non-currency related, reasons why Blockchain would be used in a game?

Virtual land. You could have a persistent game world with ownership rights and then multiple unrelated games using the public information about who owns what. Club membership. Similarly multiple unrelated games could verify that a user is a member of an external organisation to grant certain in-game privileges.

There's no value to a distributed ownership record of things in a game that is centralized anyway.

And even in a partly decentralized game where players can run their own servers, there's no way to force the private servers to respect the distributed ownership records.

Re: Epic says it’s ‘open’ to blockchain games after Steam bans them

#24

Post by Darmody » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

jobigoud wrote: post #22

Darmody wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the publisher shuts the servers down, it doesn't matter if a Blockchain days you're the owner of an item.

It matters because it means the community or another publisher can pick up where the original one left and all the data is still there. Or you can build an alternate world and carry users over.

But again you would have to rely on the publisher. And they can simply create a new Blockchain for the game. In the end there's no difference between that and a traditional db.

Re: Epic says it’s ‘open’ to blockchain games after Steam bans them

#25

Post by willio58 » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #19

There seems to be a lot of confusion what this means. There are two main uses for blockchain tech in games at the moment. One is as cryptocurrency for in game transactions, the other is for NFTs. The issues with cryptocurrency are volatility and that the decentralised structure means nobody is liable if things go wrong. With VBucks for example, the VBuck literally stops with Epic. Crypto is too often seen as a way to…

Steam doesn’t want to touch the stuff because they don’t know how they can profit from it. Once they figure that out just wait a few weeks and boom, steam suddenly has their own nft marketplace

Re: Epic says it’s ‘open’ to blockchain games after Steam bans them

#26

Post by simonh » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

willio58 wrote: post #25

simonh wrote: post #19

There seems to be a lot of confusion what this means. There are two main uses for blockchain tech in games at the moment. One is as cryptocurrency for in game transactions, the other is for NFTs. The issues with cryptocurrency are volatility and that the decentralised structure means nobody is liable if things go wrong. With VBucks for example, the VBuck literally stops with Epic. Crypto is too often seen as a way to…

Steam doesn’t want to touch the stuff because they don’t know how they can profit from it. Once they figure that out just wait a few weeks and boom, steam suddenly has their own nft marketplace

There are already profits. They will only do it if they think the business is worth the attendant costs and risks. My guess is they will not touch this because it's never going to be worth it, but I have to say it is possible the money might lure them in. We'll see.

Re: Epic says it’s ‘open’ to blockchain games after Steam bans them

#27

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

jobigoud wrote: post #21

taejo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need distributed consensus to do that, though? What's wrong with a database on a server?

The "multiple unrelated games" part. You can have game studios/creators that don't know each other build upon an existing persistent shared world without opening their database/server to the other studios.

> You can have game studios/creators that don't know each other build upon an existing persistent shared world without opening their database/server to the other studios

Why would any game developer want to create that opportunity for their competitors?

Re: Epic says it’s ‘open’ to blockchain games after Steam bans them

#28

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 2:10 PM UTC

vladvasiliu wrote: post #6

taejo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need distributed consensus to do that, though? What's wrong with a database on a server?

Wouldn't it help with the "publisher doesn't want to maintain a server for that old game anymore" situation?

> Wouldn't it help with the "publisher doesn't want to maintain a server for that old game anymore" situation?

Why would as game publisher want to undercut its own planned obsolescence?

Re: Epic says it’s ‘open’ to blockchain games after Steam bans them

#29

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

jobigoud wrote: post #22

Darmody wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the publisher shuts the servers down, it doesn't matter if a Blockchain days you're the owner of an item.

It matters because it means the community or another publisher can pick up where the original one left and all the data is still there. Or you can build an alternate world and carry users over.

> It matters because it means the community or another publisher can pick up where the original one left and all the data is still there.

How is it in the interest of the game developer to create such an insurance policy, even if it did work that way?

Re: Epic says it’s ‘open’ to blockchain games after Steam bans them

#30

Post by vladvasiliu » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #28

vladvasiliu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it help with the "publisher doesn't want to maintain a server for that old game anymore" situation?

> Wouldn't it help with the "publisher doesn't want to maintain a server for that old game anymore" situation? Why would as game publisher want to undercut its own planned obsolescence?

Disclaimer: I don't play a lot of games, and those I do play, I only play the single player campaigns, so I may be completely off and naïve here.

But, from what I've seen, there is no fee for online games. Once you buy the game, you can either not play online or play online, for the same price. There is no "cover charge", so to speak, on top of the original game price.

The publisher could try to unload the burden of the server maintenance to the players, in some sort of decentralized fashion, since running the server doesn't bring in any new money, but it does have a cost.

I'm not sure how the whole "loot boxes" / dlc thing integrates into all this, though I don't see why they wouldn't be able to sell those in a decentralized environment, too.