Geneva – 6 December 2017 – Swiss gaming company EverdreamSoft, creator of Spells of Genesis – one of the first games to integrate the blockchain – and crypto currency BitCrystals, has added a “blockchainization” feature in the game. Blockchainization allows players to transform their in-game assets into standalone, trade-able blockchain assets. The new blockchanization feature will go live on December 6th, and will let any Spells of Genesis players with fully levelled up an in-game card (in SoG terminology, this means the card is “quad-fused and levelled up”) transform into blockchain assets, and move them from the game into their own digital wallet.
The new feature is being trialled in Spells of Genesis, but EverdreamSoft plans to make its blockchainization platform available to other game developers. Spells of Genesis is available for both iOS and Android.
Giving players total control over their assets opens up many opportunities for gaming studios that see the potential of blockchain to the games industry. Not only does it mean players get to turn their investment of time and money on their favourite games into an asset that they actually own (rather than the game publisher or the platform owner retaining control), players can potentially ‘monetize’ their playing skills or time spent crafting and improving an in-game item. Anything that gets “blockchainized” in this way is transformed into an independent digital token, free to be sent to another player or to be sold on a trading platform.
EverdreamSoft’s CEO and Founder, Shaban Shaame, believes that the ability to use blockchain to give players true ownership of in-game assets has the potential to transform the games industry.
“Players can currently invest thousands of hours in games, building up powerful, or unique in-game assets. Yet, they have no ownership over them, said Shaame. “As we’ve seen with the recent concerns over loot crates and skins gambling, the ownership and control of in-game items is something that the games industry needs to resolve. Using blockchain provides an ideal way to achieve this; the question has been how to connect existing game economies to the blockchain in a way that doesn’t de-stabilise the game, and more importantly, works.”
How does blockchainization work?
- Players need to have linked their digital wallet to their game account
- Only fully levelled-up quad-fused in-game cards can be blockchainized
- Three blockchainizations per month are allowed – to deter speculators
- The blockchain fees are taken care of by EDS
There is an in-game cost of each blockchainization, paid in crystals or gems (the different in-game currencies in SoG):
- 1st card: 200 crystals
- 2nd card: 35 gems
- 3rd card: 150 gems
There may be a delay in receiving newly blockchainized cards due to the volume of all bitcoin blockchain transactions.
Blockchain in Gaming: Key Facts and Figures
- There are 220 different blockchain cards in Spells of Genesis
- Over 20,000 blockchain cards have been bought by Spells of Genesis players
- The most spent on a single Spells of Genesis card was $USD 5,000 for a ‘Satoshicard’ in June 2017
- Spells of Genesis players who purchase blockchain cards spend on average 7x more than players that only use in-app purchases
- 20% of Spells of Genesis players have connected their digital wallets to their game accounts