Blockchain Gaming Is Coming to the PS4 (sludgefeed.com) 48
An anonymous reader shares a report: The relatively new blockchain gaming industry is about to take a massive step forward as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are making their way onto the PlayStation 4. Arcade Distillery, a game developer that creates titles for PS Vita, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, is gearing up to launch a new game for the PS4 built around the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. Plague Hunters is a single-player-focused, turn-based strategy RPG with some PvP elements and the sequel to the successful Plague Road.
The game, which will be free-to-play and feature a marketplace for P2P transactions, has passed the Sony review process, passing all of PlayStation's terms and conditions, despite containing numerous elements of blockchain tech. This marks the first time any blockchain game has been able to accomplish this feat. Similar to other blockchain games, it looks like Plague Hunter's in-game assets, including units, weapons and other items, will be pegged to NFTs.
The game, which will be free-to-play and feature a marketplace for P2P transactions, has passed the Sony review process, passing all of PlayStation's terms and conditions, despite containing numerous elements of blockchain tech. This marks the first time any blockchain game has been able to accomplish this feat. Similar to other blockchain games, it looks like Plague Hunter's in-game assets, including units, weapons and other items, will be pegged to NFTs.
Peak buzzword achieved! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Peak buzzword achieved! (Score:5, Interesting)
So... are we done with blockchain yet?
No. Blockchains have legitimate uses. However the app described in TFA isn't one of them.
A blockchain is basically distributed trust. If I don't trust you, you don't trust me, and there is no 3rd party that we mutually trust, then a blockchain is useful because it allows a publicly authenticated transaction.
For the app described in TFA, a blockchain is pointless. There is already a centralized authority (the game publisher) who can just run a normal DB on their server to keep track of the tokens.
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Yes, they can.
But they also want to be able to market the player's transactions to the bottomfeeders. To do that they have to be able to uniquely track each transaction and be able to draw definitive metrics based on it. Who had what, for how long, how much did they pay, how much did they make, when, who they bought from, who they sold to, etc.
tl;cr: They want to turn every action the player makes in the game into a revenue stream from advertisers.
Re: Peak buzzword achieved! (Score:2)
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The intent here, to sell that blockchain credit for real cash outside of the game, with the claim it is not real money, even though they are attempting to create a method where they can and there of course is how much performance can the steal from your gameplay whilst they grind coin and of course when you are not using your device and it has taken over and you can bet gambling cyrpto targeted at minors or is that just gullible miners, ;D.
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Any distributed system is only as secure as its least secure node.
This is not true in general, and certainly is not true for distributed blockchains.
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My experience, professional work and certifications, tell you you're wrong.
Big balls... (Score:2)
Someone please ... (Score:2)
... provide a goddam car analogy.
I'm a retired IT guy of 28 years and I'm up on blockchain on the business side, but I never took the time to immerse myself in the game world.
Thanks.
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Where does the blockchain-supported game theory come in?
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Exactly
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Point taken. Thanks.
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This would be the equivalent of stamping your VIN on every single part of the car so that piece becomes globally unique, and it's ownership can be tracked through the blockchain.
So, in the game, when you acquire a thingy, that thingy is unique, and its ownership is stamped as having passed through you should you ever pass it on, thereb
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World of Warcraft has features that should have been in these kinds of games all along. Not just immediate buyback of an oops-sold item, but restoration of deleted/destroyed/disenchanted items, as long as you have the materials or money you got from the destructive act. This can be days or weeks later.
Tracking provenance on items doesn't need a block chain. Just additional coding for owner lists as it changes hands, along with mods to the item. Normally companies scrub that so it just needs to store a g
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My understanding, and I'm open to a call of bullshit on my part,blockchain, in its current form, does not allow for returns or deletions. If it did, hackers would be all over that.
Thanks for replying.
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I don't doubt you've correctly characterized what they're using blockchain for, but what's still missing is any argument for why blockchain is a good way of doing this.
Blockchain's advantage for cryptocurrency is that it creates a decentralized audit trail in a situation with no central authority and no mutual trust between users.
This doesn't describe a console game environment at all. In the console environment the software vendor controls everything -- unless they allow you somehow to play with your own
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Checking the blockchain yourself presumes you have access to the data and documentation on the format.
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Even having no idea, I see where you're heading. Thanks.
Awful... or maybe not. (Score:3)
I was going to make a snarky post about blockchain being utterly useless in an application where a game operator controls everything, then I realized it actually has a practical effect.
Back in the bad old days of early online games, a common way to cheat was to attack the game server to tweak the game database. Sure, the admins would come in and correct things soon enough, but it was trivial to just inject a bit more SQL and ruin things again.
In later games where trading became a part of the game, item duplication or other replication bugs skewed in-game economies in the cheater's favor, as it was possible to have your item and sell it, too.
Having every item tied to a unique token (and having appropriate verification in the game code) would make such attacks far more difficult. You couldn't just create or duplicate an item... you'd have to also generate a new token for it, and inject it into the blockchain appropriately, which would be a significant amount of effort for an attack payload.
It has an interesting parallel to multi-factor authentication. You might easily attack one channel, but having to launch a coordinated attack on a second channel makes the whole endeavor much more difficult.
Of course, it does all hinge on the game code implementing such security properly. I have no idea whether this particular game would do so.
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Of course, it does all hinge on the game code implementing such security properly. I have no idea whether this particular game would do so.
Of course, all of those other problems are caused by the game code not implementing security properly, so I don't think you need precognition to figure out how well it will work in this case...
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I don't see how a blockchain is better than just an item database with a log of what items were created, with what statistics, how they were modified and used, and if/when they were destroyed (sold to a NPC merchant, junked, deleted with a character, etc.) It seems a lot more work as opposed to just having a solid journal mechanism, especially if the only people using it are company internal. However, a blockchain might be useful to guard against internal tampering.
I can see one place where blockchain tec
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I don't see how a blockchain is better than just an item database with a log of what items were created, with what statistics, how they were modified and used, and if/when they were destroyed (sold to a NPC merchant, junked, deleted with a character, etc.) It seems a lot more work as opposed to just having a solid journal mechanism, especially if the only people using it are company internal. However, a blockchain might be useful to guard against internal tampering.
Theoretically, because it's distributed. For example, if you decide to buy a game and pay $XX a month, and invest countless hours and sometimes real $$$ into acquiring digital items... but you don't trust the developer to be able to manage a database.
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You're technically correct (the best kind of correct!) but practically, this way of addressing the problem is criminally inefficient and amounts to nothing but socializing the costs of an incredibly expensive marketing campaign. There were more efficient ways of assuring item uniqueness to a reasonably extensive degree, but they couldn't be summed up with a single buzzword.
Re: Awful... or maybe not. (Score:1)
Bitcoin crashed below $5000 today (Score:5, Interesting)
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> There';s no more hype ... a fidget spinner mmo.
I'll leave this here for you:
https://www.kongregate.com/gam... [kongregate.com]
That's all well and good, but... (Score:2)
Feck off (Score:2)
This "blockchain gaming" sounds like a truckload of horseshit.
I wonder if these new cryptocurrency press releases have anything to do with this:
https://www.coindesk.com/bitco... [coindesk.com]
Mining? (Score:2)
gearing up to launch a new game for the PS4 built around the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain
Is this just a sly attempt to hijack PCs for mining?
Astonishing! (Score:1)
It's amazing that we've come so far as to have the technology available for people to trade digital assets for digital "currency", We are truly fortunate that "teh bLockChain!!1!" has enabled us to achieve this breakthrough.
what? (Score:2)
a single player game with PvP?