As a diehard fan of the Battlefield series of games, no poor reviews were going to keep me away from Battlefield V. I’ve played the game enough to appreciate its better points, but for now I mostly play Battlefield 4 and Battlefield One.
One of the more interesting points of the game was the introduction of “Battlefield Currency,” a non-blockchain sort of token that can be purchased for real money. Then you can use the currency to buy skins and other items from the store.
Battlefield Currency – An Opportunity for Cryptocurrency?
Dice, the company that makes Battlefield, has a golden opportunity with this currency system and their next release. Why not build on blockchain, and allow for so much more?
Battlefield games all have a series of awards. These could be issued as non-fungible tokens, and a user could transfer them between accounts. It would effectively create a black market for awards, but it might give incentive to make them much harder to come by. That, and weapons and other unlocks, could be facilitated through a Battlefield coin issued on a blockchain.
Carrying real-world value and exchangeable into Ethereum, Tron, EOS, or whatever other blockchains they might decide to build on, the token would be the way in and out of the system. Best of all, for the game’s creators, the contract could be designed so that the company would make a little money off of every transaction.
A Modest Proposal
Dice also offers players the ability to rent servers for real-world cash. While you could leave the option on the table to pay with a credit card, adding the ability to pay with the game’s cryptocurrency would mean that players could essentially earn a server in the game.
The whole thing, of course, reads like an ICO pitch from 2017. Perhaps it’s asking too much of a non-native blockchain company to build such a product. Over in EnjinCoin, of course, most of what I’ve described already exists in one form or another. Players are able to trade rare weapons.
Virtually anything is possible when you introduce the blockchain to gaming, including the ability for a group of people to throw in a big bet and see who wins the money. Teams can even do it, with the way cryptocurrencies are denominated, splitting the winnings.
I think one problem you’ll run into in gaming is game loyalty. You see, I wouldn’t stop playing Battlefield just because some other game started running a cryptocurrency, even if that game was competitive. I would assume that Battlefield is better. I’m not alone, and then there are people who feel the same way about other games. This is the uphill battle of blockchain and gaming, but studios can cut to the chase and introduce the things themselves.
Imagine playing a VR game and you walk up to a store, pay with your cryptocurrency wallet, and actually receive the items in the mail. Amazon and others will of course be that way before long, and 3d cameras will make it such that even used items can be “touched.”
Suppose only a dozen of a certain weapon made, and players had to go through some pretty amazing feats to acquire them. Would it be better for the company to issue the weapons only to those people, or for them to be able to trade them off on an exchange, with the company earning on the transactions in between?
For me, it seems obvious that blockchain could do a lot of good for gaming, but for it to really take off, big game studios will need to adopt some version of it.
