[Crypto News] Gaming giant Atari launches on the blockchain

If there’s one industry that will really propel crypto and blockchain into mainstream adoption it’s gaming. Many crypto-enthusiasts come from the gaming sub-culture, so it’s not surprising that Atari, one of the biggest gaming companies in the world, has decided to officially go into business with Animoca Brands to make blockchain versions of two of their most popular mobile games, namely “RollerCoaster Tycoon Touch” (RCTT) and “Goon Squad”.

Atari has been around since 1972

And are known for those famous iconic games Tetris, Pac Man, Asteroids and Pong. Placing RCTT (which already has around 19 million downloads) onto the blockchain will certainly benefit both companies. Animoca (listed on the ASX Australian securities exchange) has already paid Atari (listed on the Nasdaq) $250 000 in shares. And earlier in February, when Atari announced its move to invest in cryptocurrency its share price skyrocketed over 60%.

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When the games launch in Q3 of 2019

They will both feature an integrated a non-fungible token – the Atari token. Other games already exist on the blockchain with their own in-house crypto tokens that are used in their game world, like Mana for example, which is used in the game Decentraland, and is, in fact, traded on Binance against BTC and ETH.

RCTT is a theme park management simulation game on iOS and Android, the original game having been around since 1999. Goon Squad is a multi-payer card-based video game on the same devices, launched just last year (2017).

“This deal marks a special moment for me because I started my career working with Atari and using Atari computers. The RollerCoaster Tycoon franchise is, like many of Atari’s properties, a true evergreen, having been around for two decades. Given the strategic and commercial elements of this incredibly fun simulation, it is a perfect candidate for blockchain adaptation.”

Yat Siu, the co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brands

The concept of the “game economy”

This concept of a separate virtual but authentic economy, available only within a game’s reality, is a fascinating one and certainly promises to expand the concept of earning money in today’s world, where old economic paradigms are shifting constantly as society immerses itself in the new world of cyberspace. Some people live vast amounts of their lives in the virtual gaming world nowadays.

After all, the goal of gaming is to create a virtual world that may be even more meaningful than real life to some. And it is in these virtual worlds that we are beginning to find these new gaming economies manifesting. This is where cryptocurrencies have a perfect use case.

A game economy

Is built on certain loops within the game, like currencies, time, XP, levels, etc, with the goal of incentivising certain behaviour in the player. Since most games are not sold at a set upfront price anymore, an internal game economy is the way for companies to guarantee commercial success. The game is downloaded for free, with revenue then coming from internal purchases. The product thus needs to keep the player within the game by continually engaging and providing value.

Most games don’t actually allow total ownership of their items, but with blockchain integration the gamers can truly own their virtual items.

The value of true ownership

Blockchain will allow gamers to freely buy, sell or exchange their items, so they don’t have to rely solely on looting to obtain swords, land, potions, armour or other weapons. Of course, game developers will have less control and items will be priced according to the market demand instead, as set by the players. Players thus face the same economic realities as in the real world. Players can even engage other gamers to carry out tasks for rewards.

This all helps to cultivate a better level of engagement as well as interaction between players. Ideally gamers start organizing themselves and find ways to build wealth, status, power and relationships in order to advance. Gradually a social order emerges making the game more interesting, which should help keep it going longer.

Atari’s use of non-fungible tokens to propel the game forward

To give some perspective, a fungible token is something like Bitcoin or even any fiat currency. I you give one and receive a different one back of the same value it doesn’t matter, since any Bitcoin or paper fiat $1 bill is as good as any other, regardless of where it has been. They’re interchangeable. Most fungible tokens are built on the Ethereum platform nowadays, using the ERC-20 standard.

Non-fungible tokens, on the other hand, are ERC-721

These can be compared to baseball cards or more recently – CryptoKitties. Such a token is different from every other in its set, and they are impossible to divide up into fractions. And some are rarer than others, or even worth more in time, with unique information. You could not exchange one for the other as you could a bitcoin because each one differs from the other. Actually it won’t be long before we have something similar in the form of digital baseball cards to be launched by Major League baseball in the USA, all built on the blockchain.

So Atari is simply following the smart money and the way of the future by climbing on board the blockchain train. In time the blockchain can become the ultimate vehicle for all significant documents with 100% certainty of security and immutability, something we simply don’t have with our current system.

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The benefit of non-fungible tokens

In Atari’s blockchain versions of their games is that it will allow much more detail in the various attributes that make each one special. It’s not just about name, supply and symbol when it comes to theses tokens. One can include a far more detailed set of metadata, including ownership history, which authenticates it and adds greater value for investors. On a broader scale one could store everything from birth certificates to academic credentials to warranties and even property or artwork ownership there. On the blockchain there is no way that they can be counterfeited or altered by an outside source.

"Blockchain technology is poised to take a very important place in our environment and to transform, if not revolutionize, the current economic ecosystem, especially in the areas of the video game industry and online transactions [...] Our objective is to take strategic positions with a limited cash risk, in order to optimize the assets and the Atari brand.”

Frederic Chesnais, Atari Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Besides that, Atari has also developed partnerships in the sister industry of crypto and gaming, namely gambling, where it will be launching a crypto token dedicated to its own particular blockchain casino. They certainly know where the money is, so should go far with this creative new venture. Gaming on the blockchain is such a promising industry that one day people will be paid to be gamers and many more will possibly even earn a living as gamers, especially as AI takes over a lot of the low skill jobs and leaves workers free to become gamers and earn their living there.

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