How to Create and Monetize a Blockchain Game

Blockchain technologies are slowly but surely making their way into various business sectors, including logistics, insurance, finance, and more.

However, there is another exciting direction – blockchain games, which experienced an explosion in popularity in 2021. These are games based on blockchain technology that use elements of cryptography. 

Today there are 398 active blockchain games, a 92% increase from just one year ago. 

So what makes blockchain games so popular, and what are the most critical aspects to consider when creating a blockchain game?

The Blockchain Game: What is It?

Blockchain games are games that are developed based on blockchain technology and use elements of cryptography. 

The most important aspect of this technology is that it allows total user possession over an item inside a game. This makes it possible to exchange items with other players freely, without transferring your entire account for the sake of one item. The introduction of blockchain into gaming delivers an entirely new player-driven economy, where anyone can create their own unique content.

The main features of a blockchain game include:

• Real digital ownership
• Non-Fungible Token (NFT)
• Interactive items across titles
• Safety
• Decentralized exchange
• The player-oriented economy

What Makes Blockchain Games so Popular?

Let’s briefly go through what Blockchain technology brings to the gaming industry:

• A game cannot be shut down. Corporations go out of business, are bought out, or those in charge can ruin a game in the pursuit of profit. This has happened again and again throughout gaming history. In the case of blockchain games, no central authority can close a game, including its original creator. 
• Freedom and democracy. Hypothetically, if players are dissatisfied with a game for some reason, they can take the original game and go in their own direction. This means that Blockchain games offer a higher level of freedom and democracy.
• Inter-game and inter-blockchain performance. This is perhaps one of the coolest features of Blockchain-based games. Since your gameplay status and personal data are constantly updated and stored on a blockchain, other (completely unrelated) games can allow you to use your existing avatars, items, and “karma” in different worlds.
• Possession of digital assets. Hundreds of millions of gamers around the world are investing a lot of time and money into their gaming assets. Here’s the problem: they can quickly lose all their hard work for many reasons, including a game ban or a company going out of business, but they can’t return the money they invested in paid items and upgrades. In blockchain games, all the hours and effort you put into your characters and digital assets are with you forever, and no one can take them away, not even the game’s creators.
• Blockchain games come with built-in economies. In the games, users can buy and sell game items on the blockchain. For example, if you do not have a specific card to create a deck in your card game, you can buy this card from a trading/auction market that runs on a blockchain.

Benefits of Blockchain Games for Developers

Developing a blockchain game requires a significant amount of funding. However, the results these games deliver tend to justify the effort. Here are some of the most important benefits of creating games on a blockchain.

• High-level data encryption. Games built on blockchain use technology that secures the storage and use of crypto tokens. This means that there is a shallow risk of hacking. All the data is stored on a decentralized blockchain, making it impossible for hackers to compromise players’ transactions. 
• Growth opportunities. The crypto-games market is gaining momentum and companies that invest in it gain access to multiple growth opportunities. They are more likely to earn a market share when they implement innovative blockchain solutions. 
• User-friendly experience. Blockchain games provide high-level security and transparency, ensuring a user-friendly experience for players. 
• Transparency of asset distribution. Players who want to own their assets and ensure that no one can take them will be attracted to the total transparency of asset distribution. 

How to Make a Game on a Blockchain

Before making a blockchain game, the developer should be aware of the most critical points in the process. These are:

 1) Blockchain possibilities and limitations

First and foremost, it is crucial to analyze and understand blockchain infrastructure. Being savvy in blockchain security, applications, integrations, and limitations is also a must. 

Blockchain developers have to know about blockchain consensus, hash functions, and distributed ledger technology. It is crucial to understand different blockchains and how they function.

2) Data structure

The developer should structure the blockchain network according to demand and requirements. Understanding different types of ideal databases and data structures for the target network is critical.

3) Smart contract development

Understanding the different types of smart contracts and how to develop them is a requirement for implementing the ideal type of contract.

4) Application of decentralization in blockchain

dApps can be built on different blockchain platforms with different protocols and procedures. A blockchain game developer should be fully aware of decentralization and how to apply it to a blockchain game. 

5) Cryptography

Cryptography and the digital ledger are the fundamentals of blockchain operations. The developer should be savvy in cryptography and a variety of algorithms to know which works best for different types of blockchain networks and how to develop them.

6) Cryptonomics

Understanding the economics of cryptocurrencies and their implementation on the blockchain is a must for a blockchain developer. Knowing the factors that affect cryptonomics and related monetary policies is also crucial.

Unicsoft is here to help you develop completely original games with unique token economies

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Top Blockchain Platforms to Build Games

Ethereum

A dispersed public blockchain network Ethereum allows you to build applications and write code in order to control money. Ethereum blockchain target is on running the programming code of a decentralized application.

Tron

Tron makes it faster and easier to create and deploy decentralized applications. The retention cryptocurrency of Tron is TRX. Tron enables an ecosystem where users can obtain digital assets from content spreading.

EOS

A decentralized operating system EOS is known for its scalability and fast transaction speed. EOS allows for building a blockchain application platform that can securely and smoothly scale to thousands of transactions per second.

Hyperledger fabric

An open source blockchain platform Hyperledger fabric is used for creating decentralized applications on a modular architecture. The blockchain allows consensus and membership services to be plug-and-play.

How to Build Blockchain Games on Ethereum

When developing blockchain games on Ethereum, experts recommend using Solidity, Serpent, or LLL languages as they are the best options for beginners. Solidity is probably the most popular language among game developers.

There are two ways that you can create games on Ethereum:

1. Using the ERC-721 token standard. This is a non-fungible token standard, meaning each token is unique or non-interchangeable. The standard allows blockchain developers to create collectibles on the blockchain with different attributes: they can have different strengths, weaknesses, movement speed, etc.
2. Using smart contracts. This method is good for building games like roulette or blackjack. Understanding mathematics and cryptography will be a must here since a developer will need to create scripts that decide whether a player wins or loses. 

Here are some tools you will need to make your game on the Ethereum blockchain.

• Truffle Framework — an Ethereum development ecosystem. Truffle Framework provides testing, deployment, and interactions between the possibilities of all your contracts on the blockchain via JavaScript.
• Solidity Browser — a free browser for browsing Solidity contracts on Etherscan. It allows for deploying contracts from websites to the Ropsten test network and then calling their public functions in a browser.
• Mocha — a test framework for Solidity. The framework allows for writing tests in JavaScript with different levels of mocking/stubbing. 
• Ganache — a blockchain emulator by Ethereum developers which allows you to set up a personal blockchain with one click. It comes with the Truffle Framework and Solidity Browser.

In Conclusion

Blockchain technologies have grown in complexity over the past few years. They are evolving and scaling. The ability of players to not only buy items and spend money inside a game but to earn for themselves has generated a high level of interest among gamers and other major players in the gaming industry. 

Unicsoft is here to help you develop completely original games with unique economies built on public or private blockchain. This includes blockchain game development, NFT game assets, crypto wallets, and payment gateways. Choose between a dozen of the most popular blockchain networks supported.