Trend Toward Crypto Gaming

One trend in cryptocurrency I am watching fairly closely is crypto gaming. Crypto based gambling sites have been around for some time but I am referring to age appropriate form of gaming. The benefits of crypto gaming are: 

1. A 'get paid to play' environment is easy to implement. 

2. Fraudulent transactions can be eliminated. 

Fraudulent transactions are quite common in gaming. Games have been created to nab credit card info from in-game purchases, accounts have been hacked, and fake sales have been made. Using the security of the blockchain can eliminate much of this. 

As far as I know, the first crypto games that involved transactions where the user kept custody of funds until transaction started on the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum was the first smart contract platform, and keeping custody of funds while interacting with a game requires smart contracts. The issue with Ethereum is low speed, which can limit the game experience. With the entry of EOS this has changed. There is great promise for more interactive games. 

I am not much of a gamer, but I have a couple mobile favorites. I have ventured into this crypto gaming world, by playing prospectors.io, steemmonsters and eosknights.io. Eos Knights and prospectors are on the EOS network, and Steem Monsters is on the STEEM network.

Steemmonsters is a virtual card collecting game. I confess I have used minnowbooter's card trading bot service so I've made money in STEEM basis using their bots. And, truly I have not played the game. Theoretically I could make more if I engaged in battles as part of game play. 

Prospectors and EOS knights have a model where you play to earn assets. Those assets can be sold to other players to make money. Prospectors is a gold mining role playing game. EOS knights involves building up fighting characters that fight until they die based on the strength of their abilities. You don't need to watch them fight, but when finished you engage the game to rebuild them and make them stronger with what you have earned. And, you might have items you want to put on the market for real EOS.

While there is no clarity on how much EOS can be made on Prospectors, I made 60 cents after two weeks and found the game to be a bit boring and frustrating. I took my 60 cents in EOS and ran. Prospector's ingame currency is PGL, a token that runs on EOS which is easily exchanged for EOS, which in turn can be exchanged for US Dollars. It appears to me the game creators make money when you rent a plot of land, and return PGL you've earned back to the game. Presumably PGL will rise in value if the game proves successful as inevitably some players don't want to earn PGL by doing low level work for other miners, but rather buy PGL to get that land quickly.

EOS Knights is a little more engaging but is too much of a random experience. You gain ground based on the material and assets you gain with each round, but what you receive is given to you via a random engine. There may be some strategy to how you build your characters. I am still learning. However, as of writing, I see the leader board suggests the top earner, received 3112 EOS, which has a value over $9,000. That makes me play on especially since my long term chart suggests EOS can run toward $540 and even six figures if my Elliott Wave perspective plays out. The EOS Knights developers appear to make money by early in app purchases during startup, and they may participate in the in app markets for weapons and other assets. 

What is missing so far from EOS games is real thought into game play. While EOS is fast, there are still too many transactions to approve in the process of game play which slows it down. Also, while EOS holds promise for live action game play, I am not sure developers yet have the expertise on how to implement that. It seems role playing where slow game play can be excused is the approach. I also see gameplay as not requiring much skill. Though I am not a big gamer, it seems getting good at the game is part of the engagement, and yes addictive process. So, I think this space has room to grow, and to become more compelling. However, as crypto does struggle to find a use case, this one seems to work. There are word of many more EOS based mobile games on the way, so I'll be watching closely.