Published on March 3rd, 2021 | by Diogo Costa

How Ubisoft is realising the potential of crypto in video games

Video games and cutting edge crypto markets are starting to converge. As gaming companies see the huge flow of money move into crypto it has caught the attention of the gaming industry who are now exploring how to use crypto to enhance the gaming experience.

We are already seeing gaming companies buying up the largest crypto exchanges in the hopes to merge the crypto finance world with ingame economies. And we are already seeing in-game items and ingame money move on to the blockchain.

One of the companies that has already started on this path is the French company Ubisoft which, with its prototype Hashcraft, is integrating strongholds of technology with treasure hunting and island exploration. With Hashcraft, players contribute to expanding the world, creating their own island, hiding their own treasures and perhaps even exchange their in game earnings into the real-world money such as BTC

The possibilities of crypto markets and video game economies are only just starting to flourish.

There are several tangible benefits identified when merging crypto with video games, such as:

Tokenization of non-fungible assets is really a new value proposition that reinforces the bond between developers and players, while the experience of true ownership, digital scarcity, provenance or interoperability between games with blockchain-based elements, having the capacity to be exciting and stimulating for players.
It is also a great opportunity to create new types of communities where players can be rewarded for their participation in the game and in the community. Crowdsourcing could increase to a really interesting level, much more attractive. Massive social gaming could also be of great use in a blockchain, where the rewards would be shared in proportion to the players’ effort.
Genuine user-generated content – it is very interesting to see how games can become incredibly open and resilient with blockchain. It also allowed gaming companies to explore the possibility that the player can expand his world, creating content and sharing it with the community without any centralized server;
The possibility of earning and transferring currency to other games and to “real world” wallets, a possibility that is currently being discussed in the industry.

Ubisoft is still at an early stage of their research and development process, currently exploring possibilities, so it is hard to say when such an integration could roll out into the market. Still, the fusion between gaming and blockchain, two vibrant worlds, opens up enormous possibilities and the creation of a unique stimulating ecosystem.

With that in mind, it may be worth considering the overall value of crypto and the blockchain for the future, not only in the gaming industry but also in several other industries. The crypto world is here to stay, and brings immense investment opportunities, not only for traders but also for the platforms that make it possible for people to trade. A good example comes from South Korea, where the gaming giant Nexon is the owner of two of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, Bitstamp and Korbit.

As mentioned above, the possibility of the gaming industry bringing in crypto assets and making it possible for players to trade these assets within the games and into the real world. For this to be possible, the industry needs to rely on crypto exchanges, which should raise interest for this type of businesses in the near future, making it a great opportunity for anyone looking for an investment.

There are a few tools, like bitHolla’s HollaEx Kit, which make launching these platforms, called exchanges, a breeze, as their kit has everything required from a white-label exchange software to go online. HollaEx Kit product is actually open-source, which ensures that its code is well reviewed by external developers, which helps certify its security and ease-of-use which is a perfect solution for game companies thinking of integrating blockchain feature like a crypto market into their games.

Tags: crypto, gaming, video games