Polyient Games is funding the next generation of blockchain-based gaming.
We’ve seen a couple of games use blockchain technology as their backbone. There’s Skyweaver, the Hearthstone-competing card game that uses the blockchain to provide players with actual ownership of the digital cards that they draw. And then there’s The Sandbox, the far more ambitious digital platform that uses the blockchain to give game designers exclusive ownership rights to whatever they produce for The Sandbox, whether it be game assets or totally new games.
There’s a real drive to get blockchain into gaming these days, and Polyient wants to be on the ground floor.
Polyient Games is not a new studio that’s making a blockchain-based video game. It’s actually an investment firm that’s looking to help other technology companies grow into the blockchain space. They’re already investing in Cargo, a San Francisco-based digital warehouse specializing in the storage of NFTs–Non-Fungible Tokens, or “nifties.”
NFTs are actually the key ingredient to blockchain gaming. Blockchain itself can be poorly summarized as just a ledger that keeps track of who owns what. This allows gamers to actually own their digital loot, whether it’s an exclusive skin for their digital avatar or a card from an online card game.
But Non-Fungible Tokens are the digital things themselves–they’re the unique bits of code that allow these digital items to exist and trade on a blockchain without getting lost or corrupted. NFTs started with the Ethereum collectibles game CryptoKitties back in 2017, and since then the technology has only grown in popularity.
“These blockchain games, driven by non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and digital collectibles, are unlocking an entirely new economic system that enables gamers to earn real money while they play,” says Polyient founder Brad Robertson. “This is unprecedented and Polyient Games’ mission is to help bring this technology into mainstream gaming.”
Which is all well and good, but the drive to create a successful blockchain-based game is forgetting the most important part of game development: it has to be a good game. All the blockchains and NFTs in the world won’t amount to anything if developers lose focus on what makes a good game–namely, if it’s actually fun.
Here’s hoping that Polyient can find a studio that wants to make a good game first and a blockchain-based game second.
Source: Polyient Games
