Growth- Idea: VIDEO GAMES - Ya, That Needed All Caps :p - A Two Path Suggestion
We need games! Online gaming is an exciting area with a lot of potential. It can be people playing, watching streams or esports, they are all taking off. It is the future and one I am happy to be a part of. But where is steem in all this? With it's unique reward system it can be a major player in the industry. From rewarding streamers, to tournaments with actual prizes to making a game that uses steem as a currency. There are a lot of places steem can go but we need to start ASAP. The market is getting hot and steem can easily be left behind.
So I want to suggest two different paths we can go to get gaming started. One is short term and the other long
Path 1: Short Term Fun
We don't need to reinvent the wheel at first. There are TONS of completed games that we can buy or rent to bring onto the site. Think of all the games that are apps on the phone and on Facebook. Let's find a few that are popular and not too expensive and get them on the system. This will also require an update on the steem app center or a new section on the site where the games can run seamlessly. The app center, at this time, feels disconnected to the site and we need a way to run apps where you still feel like you are on the site. Game will bring in users, increase the time people spend on the site and if you throw on a leaderboard or tournaments, we can add an interaction element with prizes that other sites cannot do. If we can get the site set up to play games (javescript and such) then we can start filling a catalog tomorrow with games already made.
Path 2: Long Term Steem
Forget the steemit site for a second. Imagine playing a game, that has nothing to do with steemit where you can buy, trade and sell items for steem. Maybe it is a dungeon crawler where you can sell your kickass Giant-Killer sword for 140 steem on the market, or buy a new hat for your character that was created by another player. The currency can be used for a multitude of game aspects and would add value to the currency. To get this started we will need a team. There are a few independent studios and a lot of developers you can hire. I can do research and find us the right team if this is something we want to fund. And although I am not a developer, I am an experienced writer (gamer) who can help direct the project to be a unique experience for the player. We need to do is decide on what game we want, a puzzler, an RPG, a shooter and how we want to include the steem as a currency. Then we create something that will not only bring in players but could make the news as development gets underway.
*my upvotes/rep disclaimer: https://steemit.com/steemit/@whatageek/my-steemit-account-where-i-stand-on-bots-self-votes-and-multiple-account
Cool idea. A few points:
Thanks @personz, that is the kind of thoughtful response we need to get this from an idea to a reality. Your first point makes me optimistic, maybe we can team up with a dev team to add some steem elements asap. This is the one I really want to get started, if we get games that use steem off of steemit and running on their own, it will help diversify the steem token.
For the second point I was thinking of apps that run on the side like Facebook, but as the app center on here leads people to different web sites, I see we are not at that stage. Maybe, for now, posted games might be worth exploring. Maybe give the players a piece of the rewards as they play. We could repost the game every week and make it a new 'tournament' or 'round'. The programming side is not my expertise, I want to dive deeper into it, but don't have time for the studies.
Glad to be of service 😄 I'm interested in game development, and know coding, but not sure where I'd find the time for it either.
On the second point again, if the devs open up steemit.com to integrated 3rd party apps, as in Facebook, things like this would be possible. But really not before then. @sneak, we'd love to see this 😇
Perhaps some kind of game which is actually in posts would be cool? Not a realtime game but some other game. I suppose it would only really work with puzzles or something but if you're imaginative enough something could be found!
I love this idea. Make a game like a Mario/endless runner for browser.
Earn steem every x distance.
Call it. SteemitSteve.
Steemit Steve, I like it :)
I'm thinking either miner theme. Or secret agent a la Bond. James bond.
A miner theme could work, you get coins as you 'mine' forward, works well with the cryptocurrency theme.
I have looked at a lot of browser based games that offer their HTML for free distribution but they won't work here on Steemit (the code is "invalid").
I was thinking the same thing, we will need an add-on then that can read the code. Maybe that can be the growth-idea.
What would be even cooler is if we could have browser games based on Asteroids and Centipede, and more, that paid Steem/Steem Dollars to the high score holders based on their time at the top.
That would drive interest and competition.
Agreed, like an hourly payout if you hold your spot is a great idea. There are so many paths we can take and a few of them already have the groundwork accomplished. Hope we can get this off the ground
Here is my take expanding on the idea you brought up. I think it could work and it would help tie in with your recent post about getting the value of Steem to skyrocket.
https://steemit.com/games/@triverse/how-video-games-could-help-steemit-expand-and-grow