How the gaming industry fails to incentivize gamers and developers

Who doesn't love a fun game! After a long day of work being able to crack open your preferred beverage and immerse yourself into a fantasy world and unwind even for a few minutes can be incredibly revitalizing. This is true for both the casual gamer and the hardcore competitive gamer, there's truly something magical about these virtual adventures. In addition, those who develop these games are in a lucrative and exciting profession. The gaming industry has always been a neat industry, but it has never been perfect. They suffer from some of the same issues that plague other systems around the world including financial systems, middlemen. The good news is, similar to financial systems, we now have a disruptive blockchain based solution to combat this inefficiency. I'm talking about Chimaera and it's in the pre-sale stage right now. Let's explore some of the ways Chimaera can revolutionize the gaming industry by simply better incentivizing gamers and developers.

Source: Chimaera Website

Gamer Incentive

Most online games have some form of marketplace. This allows users who are new to have a chance to get up to par with their gaming friends so they can collaborate to improve the experience. The implementation of this "pay to play" mechanic is generally most beneficial to several middlemen between gamers and developers. The problem with the existing model, generally speaking, is that you're purchasing these items from some kind of marketplace where items are hosted by the game studio and not by other players. On the gamers end, this means that if you have excessive supply of valuable items you have to sell those back to game vendors so that you're not competing with the studio. In some cases, games do allow users to sell their items to each other but they only provide an on-ramp from fiat to in game currency, no off-ramp, so there's no real world monetary incentive.

Source: Pixabay

Let's look at an example: Player 1 has been playing a game for years and has tons of in game currency and items. Player 2 has only been playing for about a month and is wanting to be more competitive but doesn't have many resources. Player 2 has decided to spend $100 on getting all "geared up" so they can play on another level, after-all they're a skilled gamer, they just don't have time to grind out the gear to be able to enjoy end-game content right away. Here's what that transaction might look like right now:

Player 2 purchases either in game currency or items directly from some kind of game studio marketplace with static, noncompetitive pricing. Player 2 spends all $100 and finds himself only halfway as geared as he would like. Player 2 understands that he'll have to either gear up the rest of the way or come up with another $100 to really be where he wants. Player 1 sells a bunch of valuable in game items to an NPC (Non-Player Character). She now has extra inventory space and a little bit of in game currency that isn't particularly useful to her.

Now, here's what that interaction might look like on a game built on Chimaera:

Player 2 buys $100 worth of CHI tokens and converts those into the in-game currency needed. Player 2 reaches out to the community within the game and expresses interest in a handful of items. Player 2 receives various offers, player 1 reaches out with the best offer since she has a huge supply of items and currency already. Player 1 agrees that she's willing to sell the entire set for about $75 worth of in game tokens. Player 2 gets WAY more gear than he would have from a game studio run marketplace and has $25 worth of in game tokens to use for whatever he pleases. Player 1 gets $75 worth of in game tokens, but doesn't really need them for anything in game. Player 1 exchanges those in game tokens for CHI to use for other games she likes, or even to exchange for other cryptocurrencies or over to fiat.

This all is possible because in Chimaera, the blockchain ledger tracks ownership of unique items that can be transferred. Within the game, you actually own your items and can do with them as you please. This is hard to replicate in non-blockchain based games because they are far more susceptible to hacking and fraud. The blockchain solution allows for the trustless peer-to-peer transactions needed for this to work without negatively impacting the gaming economy.

Developer Incentive

Another issue with the current gaming market is the incentive for developers. Developers put in all kinds of hard work to make the games perfect for the users, they write out all the code, test it, debug it, collect feedback, rewrite parts, etc. They do this all to give players the ultimate experience. Although their pay isn't "bad" generally speaking, they're also doing the vast majority of the work to make games that sometimes pull multiple millions of dollars in revenue. So, when you compare their work to the value it creates, all the sudden their pay doesn't look all that impressive. In most scenarios, the developers get a market wage to do their job, and that's the end of it. So, where's all the money going if not to the developers?

Well, consider all the middlemen that stand between you and the game being developed, predominantly the game studio. Think about hardware requirements and maintenance to host a large online gaming community, that costs a ton of money that can't go to developers. Many newer, smaller budget games don't even have the luxury of self-hosting their games which means that you not only have to pay someone else to cover the cost of providing and maintaining hardware, you also pay a premium for not having to provide that service yourself. In the end of the day you might have 3 or more organizations with a hand outstretched expecting a portion of your income. What you end up with is a lot of people getting paid, some of whom are not really doing all that much other than maintaining relationships, and others that are performing overlapping tasks. It's just not efficient in the grand scheme of things.

Source: imgflip

Prior to blockchain technology, the need for middlemen wasn't really going anywhere. Small indie games would always end up having to work with a studio at some point to be able to handle an expanding user-base. That's where Chimaera's ability for scaling storage needs across a decentralized network comes into play. Beyond that, there are better structures in place for maintaining income after a games implementation as a developer, which means you may not need much or any administrative costs to make sure you're collecting revenue post-release. If you are able to get enough traffic on your game, you can have it designed in such a way that you get a small cut of each transaction. If you think about the amount of transactions that would occur in a successful online game where items flow through a free market, you can imagine that would add up significantly. If other pay structures work best for you multiple are supported as well. The big theme here is cutting fat and getting rid of unnecessary middlemen, with those extra costs gone there's just more money to go around! Developers can also take advantage of pre-built libraries and game engine templates to speed up their production and yet again cut out the need for outside help on their projects.

Summary

If you're still not sure about Chimaera, take a couple minutes to watch this video for more information. Also, visit their website and give their whitepaper a read-through.

Source: Chimaera Website

The entire Chimaera ecosystem is developer friendly, making it possible for developers to be in charge of the creation of games they truly want to build. It makes the marketplace more efficient and lowers the cost of production while increasing speed of development. It allows gamers to actually own their in game items, making them hold real world value. It also facilitates the ability for users to pivot between games by keeping the market open to not only items, but games and accounts as well. This concoction is perfect for success in the competitive gaming industry. Watch for Chimaera to make an impact after it's Q2 ICO!

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