Mapping out Decentralized Gaming | The best crypto coverage of 2018
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“One recent crypto holiday party offered ‘broken Lambo dreams and an open bar to drown your sorrows in.’” — Nellie Bowles, Reporter The New York Times
The Big Block
It is no surprise that some of the most popular dApps built on blockchain platforms are games. In fact, for gamers, digital currencies are commonplace in the games they play.
A majority of games have native currencies that allow gamers to purchase items, acquire new skills, and upgrade their in-game characters. Take League of Legends for example: the multiplayer online battle arena game is free to play but generates revenue by getting its players to purchase “Riot Points” which can be converted to items in the game. This freemium model helped League of Legends generate $2.1B in 2017. Fortnite, the online shooter, is another example. In 2018, Epic Games, the creators of Fortnite, generated a reported $3B in profits, all of which came from players buying its in-game currency, V-Bucks.
The market is no different with gaming dApps. While traditional users may shun at the multi-step process to use a dApps, gamers, who are typically more tech-savvy, appear to be willing to take the extra steps to play the games that appeal to them. This engaged user base is one of many reasons investors are pouring in millions of dollars into blockchain gaming studios and why TRON, the dApp development platform, has launched a $100M gaming fund.
Gamers are nerds and nerds are one of the first adopters of new technology — pushing fringe technology into the mainstream. Acquiring gamers is a gateway to acquiring mainstream users and dApp developers are taking notice, producing gaming dApps by the hundreds.
The Block has mapped out four branches of the decentralized gaming industry: (1) Betting & Gambling, (2) Games, (3) Collectibles, and (4) Platforms
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The best crypto coverage of 2018
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