The value of the decentralized token would be determined by the free market.

If the centralized entity ever had a history of patching the game to block tokens, then the value of that token would go down a lot.

But if the value is determined by a single centralized entity, what is the value that crypto tokens bring?

For example, if WOW currency were to become decentralized overnight -- what would practically change? Either way Blizzard can take them away. Either way value of token will drop if Blizzard does this a lot.

A better example might be Minecraft, where there are different servers hosting the game and you can't necessarily port your items over.

But verification of rare digital assets could produce some interesting scenarios. One could make a virtual trophy room showcasing their in-game achievements. Imagine there's some game tournament for StarCraft for example. Winners get paid in cash and also get one-time issued virtual medals as proof of their achievement. Like Super Bowl rings, these medals would have sentimental and tangible value.

> A better example might be Minecraft, where there are different servers hosting the game and you can't necessarily port your items over.

How would items appear on the blockchain in this case? If every minecraft server can record created items on the blockchain, I can just run my own server that's modified to give me whatever I want. At that point a simply federation of servers seems to provide the same utility of transferring items between servers (but for free).

EDIT, added: > Winners get paid in cash and also get one-time issued virtual medals as proof of their achievement. Like Super Bowl rings, these medals would have sentimental and tangible value.

They have to be issued by the organizer of the tournament to provide any value. What does decentralization buy me there? The organizer might as well just put on the website "X won Y".

A lot of these pie in the sky ideas seem poorly thought out once one asks what new value would a blockchain solution add.

http://erc721.org/ <= That gives you the spec for Ethereum's ERC721 standard, which provides the ability to produce non-fungible assets on the blockchain (which is what CryptoKitties is based on). The creators of Minecraft (or insert future hit video game here) can issue limited release assets using this standard. Whatever arbitrary criteria they want to come up with for dispursing these tokens is ultimately up to them. It's not hard to imagine scenarios where this plays out in in-game economies. We've already seen multi-million dollar economies spring up in MMOs. It's also not hard to conceive of cross-game assets that grant special in-game abilities, special in-game decor, or what have you. If you think the big names like Blizzard have no incentive to do so, well how about the indies? Someone could easily come up with some reward scheme that several or more indies agree to recognize within their games. This would produce an incentive for players to play multiple games and succeed to a certain level in order to collect a complete set of items.

As for organizers of tournaments issuing an ERC721 token in recognition of some achievement, well, as noted...the asset is non-fungible. It will last on the blockchain for as long as Ethereum as a network stays functional. A note on a webpage isn't tradeable. It isn't referenceable by other games. It can be duplicated infinitely.

Provably rare digital assets now exist. And the implications of that are just beginning to be explored. I think it's exciting times.

CryptoKitties seems to work because all the game logic is on the blockchain. But for a more involved game this is not feasible. Whenever you have to interface with the outside world you have a trust issue there: You need to somehow trust the correctness of the data put on the blockchain in the first place. This is the same problem where smart contracts break down when they concern stuff outside of the blockchain.

E.g., if I wanted to, say, give out blockchain-diamonds to Minecraft players when they mine diamond ore in Minecraft, I need to somehow be able to trust that when a server reports "player X mined a diamond on my server", that this is actually correct. Whenever you you have an interface to the outside world you get these kind of trust issues. And then you might as well go with a centralized or federated solution, since the trust issues are the same but a federated system is much more efficient.

Same for the indies: To make the economy worth anything, it can't be trustless in the sense of blockchain. Indie company A must somehow be sure that indie company B (or anyone else) isn't giving out rewards for cheap. At this point you might as well build a federated system built on public/private-key cryptography and save yourself the overhead of a blockchain.

As for the tournament prize: I don't see what the blockchain accomplishes over an email/piece of paper/whatever saying "Player X won tournament Y" that is PGP signed by the organizer of the tournament. It is even more resilient than the blockchain (the receiver can keep and show it as long as he wants), you can send it to whomever you care to, and you can copy it as often as you like.

My understanding is the ethereum-based tokens can't scale so a true gamecoin will need its own chain. I've been following/waiting for this coin that is supposed to come out in a few days: https://chimaera.io/

A game accepting the token would be able to get an instant potential audience of people who had built up a lot of value in it already

So this sounds like a good reason for game developers not to use decentralised currencies, since it makes it easier for competitors to steal players away.

It’s the same question as whether or not an office suite or a graphics editor should use an open format. There are arguments for and against. If you are open, you can attract users from other products, and being open may make users want to use your software. If you’re closed, then you get to lock users in, which can also be very lucrative.

While not participating means no "real world" money involved and an uphill battle for adoption. The game would have to be an outstanding gem, and even then markets will form.

Would it be worthwhile for a game developer to spend time on an economic system, or the game? Unless the game is an economic system...

Generally speaking, game developers need to create and maintain "fixed" economic systems to make the game fun. Games regularly suffer from ridiculous economic effects because it's too easy to get money and not enough sinks, or vice versa. Making the tokens tradeable outside the game doesn't fix this, and in fact creates even more problems - the presence of gold farmers and those who pay them can unbalance the game for others playing the game with them.

People spend their lives struggling under capitalism and use games to escape - and then you want to create a capitalist class system there too?

You can try to stop it, but that never works in the long run. Ever.

If there's going to be a social element, it will be exploited to the game's level of popularity.

That isn't to say a game can't remain closed and private with a simplistic model, just that popularity will generally weaken whatever community aspects made it great early on.

We kind of have that situation with crypto kitties - you own a number representing the cat but the image is rendered on a centralised server. I guess if they shut / patched the server people could write / fork a new one. It's a funny business based on perceptions of what things are worth like art.