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The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game

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Re: The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game

#71

Post by DonHopkins »

alanfalcon wrote: post #69
midislack wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK but WHAT IS THE GAME? What do you DO with CryptoKitties?

Breeding is a complex and nuanced game mechanic, which when coupled with the worldwide marketplace unlocks a dizzying rabbit hole. Once you understand the mechanics, you realize just why a Gen 1 Tendertears would be a grail collectible to own. I called it more of a sandbox than a game, but there are also Fancy Chases, events where a specific limited-time breeding goal is introduced and it's a race to be among the fir…

Maybe it's just fun to spend money you don't need, or stole, or swindled, or need to launder.

Re: The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game

#72

Post by DonHopkins »

klodolph wrote: post #29
simsla wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that always the case? My friend was talking about a rare Magic The Gathering card being worth a silly amount of money... Except the card had only been sold once or twice at that price. Unless you have enough comparable items (e.g. paintings by the Dutch masters) it's really difficult to determine the value of something that's rarely sold.

Funny you should mention MtG, since the first big crypto exchange collapse was MtGox. I always thought it was "Mt. Gox", like a mountain of sorts. Turns out it's Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange. Edit: MtG seems like it has some kind of evergreen popularity, and various format changes, changes in the list of banned cards, reprints, and changes in the metagame will mean that prices of individual cards can vary wil…

Not to be confused with the Berkeley Unix software company called "Mt Xinu". (The operating system's name is a recursive acronym, while the company's name is a backwards spelling.)

"We know UNIX TM backwards and forwards." -Mt Xinu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MtXinu

Famous for the great posters they handed out at Usenix:

"4.2 > V" BSD -vs- System V, X-Wing / Death Star Poster

https://www.ericconrad.com/2008/12/

I love all the old telephone equipment in the explosion!

Re: The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game

#73

Post by Kiro »

Chabsff wrote: post #70
alanfalcon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CryptoKitties is a lot of fun, for what it is. It's super deep and while it's more of a sandbox than a typical game, I became obsessed with it when it came out, though not for monetary reasons (if it has one huge drawback as a game, it's always been how much it costs IMO). Became so obsessed that I ended up hired by Dapper Labs and working on the CryptoKitties team, later helped design and launch NBA Top Shot on Flow…

You cannot have a conversation about "crypto games" without addressing how crypto makes the game better. For the sake of this conversation, it doesn't particularly matter how fun CryptoKitties is. What matters is how does the blockchain integration make the game better than it would otherwise have been. From my point of view so far, even the best crypto game out there would have been better if it wasn't for the crypt…

HyperDragons. Someone made a game where you bred dragons that could eat CryptoKitties to absorb their attributes. The composability and interoperability of the blockchain means anyone can extend your game and build mechanics with your assets, without your permission. It's truly an open API.

Re: The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game

#74

Post by bombcar »

coding123 wrote: post #67
Melchori wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaming with being able to earn money is something I normally call gambling or work. It's depressing to think about it. And yes people who made gold in wow were also not gaming but working. It wasn't cool, fun or whatever 10 years ago

I also had fun making gold in Skyrim, which was offline. I don't recall it being work, but whatever.

It can be a puzzle with a built in score and fun, but rarely are these direct-to-cash games fun.

D3 got much better when the real money auction house closed.

Re: The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game

#76

Post by xani_ »

secretsatan wrote: post #45

I read these articles sometimes about crypto games, but they all never seem to describe the actual game, it’s like crypto is the primary concern, and game is secondary, and i’m getting the distinct impression none of these games are any fun and everyone in the space has to avoid mentioning it. I think that the people writing these things only have a very slim grasp of gaming, but they know it would be a good market t…

They are like porn games, the gameplay is not the focus, fucking is.

Except it's you getting fucked in crypto.

Re: The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game

#77

Post by UberFly »

Melchori wrote: post #50
secretsatan wrote: post #45

I read these articles sometimes about crypto games, but they all never seem to describe the actual game, it’s like crypto is the primary concern, and game is secondary, and i’m getting the distinct impression none of these games are any fun and everyone in the space has to avoid mentioning it. I think that the people writing these things only have a very slim grasp of gaming, but they know it would be a good market t…

Gaming with being able to earn money is something I normally call gambling or work. It's depressing to think about it. And yes people who made gold in wow were also not gaming but working. It wasn't cool, fun or whatever 10 years ago

You are obviously not a gamer or understand the appeal.

Re: The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game

#78

Post by pdntspa »

Kiro wrote: post #73
Chabsff wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot have a conversation about "crypto games" without addressing how crypto makes the game better. For the sake of this conversation, it doesn't particularly matter how fun CryptoKitties is. What matters is how does the blockchain integration make the game better than it would otherwise have been. From my point of view so far, even the best crypto game out there would have been better if it wasn't for the crypt…

HyperDragons. Someone made a game where you bred dragons that could eat CryptoKitties to absorb their attributes. The composability and interoperability of the blockchain means anyone can extend your game and build mechanics with your assets, without your permission. It's truly an open API.

And what here does the blockchain offer that a database table doesn't? Other than the ability to monetize.

Re: The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game

#79

Post by milesvp »

klodolph wrote: post #29
simsla wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that always the case? My friend was talking about a rare Magic The Gathering card being worth a silly amount of money... Except the card had only been sold once or twice at that price. Unless you have enough comparable items (e.g. paintings by the Dutch masters) it's really difficult to determine the value of something that's rarely sold.

Funny you should mention MtG, since the first big crypto exchange collapse was MtGox. I always thought it was "Mt. Gox", like a mountain of sorts. Turns out it's Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange. Edit: MtG seems like it has some kind of evergreen popularity, and various format changes, changes in the list of banned cards, reprints, and changes in the metagame will mean that prices of individual cards can vary wil…

The old magic the gathering game blog had a lot of good game design topics. One of the articles talked about the 3 or 4 player archtypes they tried to design for. Worth the potential rabbit hole.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/t...

Re: The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game

#80

Post by landryraccoon »

Kiro wrote: post #73
Chabsff wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot have a conversation about "crypto games" without addressing how crypto makes the game better. For the sake of this conversation, it doesn't particularly matter how fun CryptoKitties is. What matters is how does the blockchain integration make the game better than it would otherwise have been. From my point of view so far, even the best crypto game out there would have been better if it wasn't for the crypt…

HyperDragons. Someone made a game where you bred dragons that could eat CryptoKitties to absorb their attributes. The composability and interoperability of the blockchain means anyone can extend your game and build mechanics with your assets, without your permission. It's truly an open API.

Couldn’t that have been done equally well with a centralized ledger? Lots of games have “high stakes pvp”, such as eve online. They don’t have a blockchain, and yet you can still steal stuff permanently from other players if that’s how you want to play the game.
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