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The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game

spectrum.ieee.org

191–200 of 377 posts

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

#191

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…

The game is the game of life where you try to make the most money

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

#192
post #189
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These reads to me as: Haven for asian bot farms.

Why do anti-crypto people always seem to go into all every conversation with completely bad faith? It's fun to take something someone else built, and do something new and not planned by the origional devs with it. That's it, it's just not necessary to assume bad faith.

Because the world they seem to be advocating for is a dystopian hellhole.

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

#193
post #117

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…

Check https://www.cryptokitties.co/guide/ways-to-play The reason it seems like they didn't describe the "actual game" is that there is no actual "gameplay". You just pay to collect cats. You can trade the cat tokens with other people, try to sell them on the marketplace, pay to generate semi randomized new cat tokens via "breeding", and... just have them under your wallet / name. There is no action, no RPG, no platfo…

> Why breed Purrstige Traits? Breeding a Purrstige Trait can be challenging, but it’s rewarding too. Because Purrstige Traits are time-limited, they’re particularly rare — and especially valued as a result. Plus, Purrstige Traits are always a nice visual treat, creating some of the game’s most beautiful and unique cats.

From the docs, lots of talk about value. Not much reason why. It reminds me of the Beanie Babies Valuation books. Made everyone scream over a $7 plushie.

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

#194

Is there a curated list somewhere of all the examples of crypto/blockchain being used for grifting and fraud?

Quoted post unavailable.

This is not a good comparison. You frequently use the internet for other things. It seems like crypto is only used for this, with every other use being closer to an edge case.

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

#195
post #3

One thing I don't see addressed in this article is that as far as I know, it's basically impossible to trust the reported price or volume of NFT transactions, because there's no way to distinguish fake wash trades from real ones. So it's hard to draw any conclusions about whether the data reflects an actual peak in user activity, or just a peak in scams.

Can someone tell me how to successfully do a wash trade? because I frankly have no idea.

If you fund it from your coinbase account, coinbase is going to tell the taxman about both your wallets... so no buerno. If you fund another wallet from a known wallet... the tax man can still see that. If you use Tornado cash, Coinbase is going to block it. I just don't think it's as easy as people think it is.

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

#196
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If only there were some off-the-shelf technology for tracking digital assets Isn't this any relational database where you can set the owner_id of an item? > your entire game backend would then be built around a single marketplace that might randomly pull your game for some reason and shut down your entire company Most online games have some sort of digital assets they have to keep track of, and that's one of the tr…

i think you missed the part about having to run that service yourself and all the headaches that entails

But you already have to run yourself a similar infrastructure for the game itself, the digital asset tracking is just a small part that can be integrated within the existing systems.

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

#197
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have no meaningful way to testify that you recieve an item from killing a boss, for example. Surely you could have a smart contract that implements that (and, in the extreme case, I guess you submit the random seed for this boss fight and a hash of the button inputs you used or something - of course there's no way to stop you using a bot to automate pressing the buttons at the right time, but that applies to re…

I have considered this already. That does not solve anything here, for the reasons you have mentioned yourself. To the extent that it is broken in world-of-warcraft, it will be more broken here because there will be fees associated with playing, so players will be incentivised to make the most of their money by cheating and trying to optimize the smallest possible "proof". Eventually, so many people will cheat that t…

> To the extent that it is broken in world-of-warcraft, it will be more broken here because there will be fees associated with playing, so players will be incentivised to make the most of their money by cheating and trying to optimize the smallest possible "proof".

Ultimately on a technical level it's just another form of proof of work - the boss issues a challenge and the player has to figure out a response that meets that challenge - but if you can make it a kind of "work" that's easier for a human player than a bot, then you get a game that works. As far as I know, even though there are gold farmers etc. in WoW they haven't found it worthwhile to script the raids / boss fights, so it seems like games designers are still able to stay ahead of the automation at the moment, and while the financial incentive would be stronger for a blockchain game it seems like a difference of degree rather than a really radical change.

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the few areas where I think there's a legitimately useful role for NFTs. WoTC (the owners of MtG) could "mint" a limited number of cards each year, just like today, controlling the rarity of certain ones, etc. People could pay WoTC for them, and they could be traded in the blockchain, which shows the "chain of custody" all the way back to WoTC, which is what makes it "authentic". Online tournaments cou…

> They already do this sort of thing with MtG Online Exactly. They can track all this stuff in their own database. WotC doesn't stand to benefit from putting anything on a blockchain.

The collectibles WotC issues could be much more valuable if they are issued on the blockchain where both exchangeability and access to provenance are guaranteed.

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

#199

So basically, as Ethereum gets more popular, the price of gas goes up. Eventually the cost of making a transaction will often become higher than the transaction itself, all of which you have no control over because it is all determined by how many people are using Ethereum. If true, this seems insane.

Supply and demand for gas, it's logical.. there's limited blockspace, so you let the highest bidder get it. Avalanche solves this problem by horizontally scaling using something called Subnets. As games or applications outgrow the main-net they can move to their own dedicated chain which is interoperable with the mainnet. When the games moved, demand for blockspace shifted, and gas prices went down for everyone (including the players).

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

#200
post #187
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check https://www.cryptokitties.co/guide/ways-to-play The reason it seems like they didn't describe the "actual game" is that there is no actual "gameplay". You just pay to collect cats. You can trade the cat tokens with other people, try to sell them on the marketplace, pay to generate semi randomized new cat tokens via "breeding", and... just have them under your wallet / name. There is no action, no RPG, no platfo…

>It's basically like that except there is no underlying game to play, Do you think anyone paying >1k for a Pokémon or Magic card is actually using them to play?! That shit is in a sealed case and only sees daylight to impress people or to resell it. I've met collectors who use home printed cards because they are too scared to damage even 10$ cards.

But you can choose what to do with your cards. And there are formats that don't need you to spend tons of money to have fun.
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