Egretia founder and the future of blockchain gaming

Peter Huang joins the 3 O’Clock Entrepreneurship Discussion Group to discuss blockchain and gaming

The 3 O’Clock Entrepreneurship Discussion Group invited Peter Huang, founder of Egretia, to give a talk on the topic of “Blockchain and Gaming — New Opportunity and Challenge.”

Huang is a veteran of the online and games industries, with a resume spanning 18 years. His current project, Egretia, is a marriage of HTML5 and blockchain technologies. In conversation with 3 O’Clock, Huang shared his predictions and concerns for blockchain gaming. Here are some of the highlights:

On the differences between traditional games and blockchain gaming

Peter Huang: When it comes to traditional games, the game rules are set and modified by the developers — developers are the ‘God’ of the game. Secondly, game accounts are tied to developers’ servers, and the accounts cannot be moved. Game props are tied to the game accounts and cannot be transferred around.

Right now there are a lot of problems in actually utilizing blockchain technology and tokens in gaming. For example, games developed using ETH will incur a relatively high gas fee when sending a few commands in the game. For example, games like CryptoKitties cost a lot when interacting on the game — roughly $10 to play — and due to technology limits, for example, it is impossible to interact within the game with quick response times.

The current Ethereum platform cannot support (complicated games), so we’ll have to wait for another public blockchain that is more suitable for gaming.

On applying blockchain technology to existing games

Peter Huang: I think payment rules for tokens, with certain conditions, could be written into the smart contract. It is up to the developers to decide how to design a game that is suitable for blockchain technology. The key is whether or not the games rules are in line with the spirit of blockchain…

The current Ethereum platform cannot support (complicated games), so we’ll have to wait for another public blockchain that is more suitable for gaming.

On the difference between blockchain players and traditional gamers

Peter Huang: Most blockchain users are not game players, which means they are more likely to be drawn to gaming. [Ed – In the way that non-gamers have taken to casual mobile games.] We categorize these users as inexperienced players who don’t know much about games, which means that overly complicated games are not suitable for these types of people.

For traditional players, the threshold for them to become a blockchain game player is quite high. To begin with, we have to educate traditional players about blockchain technology and tokens; of course, if the game provides an excellent user experience, the education costs would be reduced. The next step is to use significant promotion to help traditional players understand the features of blockchain games, such as the fairness of game rules and preservation of virtual game assets.

Blockchain games should not be restricted by our thoughts about traditional game models

On promoting blockchain ecosystems in gaming

Peter Huang: For players, we can provide them with a decentralized virtual asset transaction platform which will increase the activity level of players. For developers, we provide them with a blockchain game distribution center or customer acquisition channel so that developers can acquire more players and players can discover more fun games.

Our attitude towards blockchain games should not be restricted by our thoughts about traditional game models and our current circumstances. This can be compared to how PC game developers viewed web games and how mobile game developers viewed HTML5 games.

People in a stand-alone gaming era couldn’t have ever anticipated the Internet game era. The 2G network environment was incapable of the same type of function that can be realized under a 4G bandwidth.

New things will eventually find their proper place and profit models. We just need to be patient, and not try to grow an industry all in one step, but instead give sufficient time for the new blockchain technology to evolve and develop in the gaming industry.

You can read Huang’s transcript of the session on Medium.

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