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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

#371
post #87

> What Went Wrong? It's in the title of the article. It's a "Blockchain Game". That's what went wrong. It was a flawed concept from its inception. Blockchains are pretty cool from a math/cryptography standpoint, but they really do not provide added value in most areas people try to apply them to. CryptoKitties is a digital trading card game. You get cards, you can "breed" cards together to make new cards, you trade/b…

I know the blockchain has been kind of tainted by the way it's been used for the past few years, but I do believe that there can be valid uses for it. Lately I've been thinking if it would be possible to have an MMORPG game where instead of a server all the data would be saved in a blockchain/linked list. The biggest concern I have though is the latency and speed. Could blockchains be fast enough or in some other way…

I guess what I'm looking and thinking about is just peer-to-peer MMORPG game, but because the data has to be stored somewhere, it could be stored everywhere.

That's is if the latency could be fast enough for normal gameplay.

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

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lately I've been thinking if it would be possible to have an MMORPG game where instead of a server all the data would be saved in a blockchain/linked list. What for? What advantage would this have over storing data on a server? > I've been thinking about this, because servers are expensive and doing it this way you would have, kind of, solved the problem of scalability - no queues. You're just offloading the cost o…

>What for? What advantage would this have over storing data on a server? Mostly because I'm kinda poor and can't even think about buying it renting servers. That's why I thought that such a solution would allow me to keep developing my game while the players could still play the game. If it would be possible, which from replies to my comment, I'm guessing isn't, it would also mean that even if I died, people could st…

> I am surprised by the negativity that the HN crowd has poured onto me.

I'm sorry. I'm not trying to insult you directly - but I do think your idea is not a good one, I don't think it solves the problems you think it does, I don't think the problems you posit are the biggest issues with MMORPGs, and I think it'll create even more problems even if it did address the issue you brought up.

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

#373
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? HyperDragons is just interacting with the CryptoKitties smart contract. They are not using any art or other IP from CryptoKitties.

So cyptokitties are not cartoon characters like Pokemon? All I'm saying is, if Nintendo made a Pokemon NFT, another company such as Ubisoft would not be able to add Pikachu to their blockchain based game without an intellectual property license by Nintendo. This would seemingly make a Pokemon NFT rather pointless.

I would still be able to build applications utilizing the Pokemon NFT, and use it in my game, without infringing on the copyright. The NFT itself is just an ID with some meta data and doesn't contain any IP. The IP is in Nintendo's own front-end for the NFT.

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

#374
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…

Back in 2002 I used to hang out in Yahoo pool rooms. I was in a league even. At the time a lot of people in there were cracking Yahoo rares. Names that you can't make as username anymore. Most coveted were ones with capitals, special characters, underscores at the beginning. People bought and sold those for thousands of dollars. That made more sense to me than these crypto games. Those were at least something scarce…

Yea i miss those days. I have 1 id still left out of all the ones i had. You_can_suck_it_just_dont_bite

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

#375
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…

Back in 2002 I used to hang out in Yahoo pool rooms. I was in a league even. At the time a lot of people in there were cracking Yahoo rares. Names that you can't make as username anymore. Most coveted were ones with capitals, special characters, underscores at the beginning. People bought and sold those for thousands of dollars. That made more sense to me than these crypto games. Those were at least something scarce…

The other ones i had i was young at the time and dumb and let someone hold onto them and they got me never heard from him again good ones too

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

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because the algorithm makes it so.

I don't understand what this comment means.

The scarcity is artificial and baked into the algorithm. There’s nothing “natural” about it. It’s by design.

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

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what this comment means.

The scarcity is artificial and baked into the algorithm. There’s nothing “natural” about it. It’s by design.

VM execution requires computing power and disk space. Those are both naturally scarce, especially in the world's most redundant VM. The same VM instruction is run on more physical CPUs and its result is stored on more SSDs than any other VM setup in history. The overhead required for this kind of redundancy is insane, and it's why the Ethereum VM has such extremely limited throughput.

If the VM's cap were lifted and it allowed anybody to use it for free, the demand for VM resources would quickly exceed the clients' ability to host the VM. The Ethereum VM would pin even the beefiest host's CPU at 100% and require each network participant to maintain petabytes of disk space.

The way Ethereum works, every client needs to execute every calculation that every other client wants to run on the VM. Every request to run code on the VM is basically an amplification attack against the network, which is why execution is strictly metered and charged for. It's a ballooning On^2 resource problem that is very much limited by the natural scarcity and limitations of the silicon it runs on.

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