Early crypto game companies face challenges in delivering superior experiences to traditional studios like Ubisoft. The first programmable blockchain changed the way players view property, allowing them to sell assets on the blockchain. Web 3.0 games have usability issues, but solutions like account abstraction could improve the user experience.
Web 3.0 game companies have worked hard to convince gamers that they offer a superior experience to Activision Blizzards and Ubisofts of the world.
The hassle of managing private keys, special strings of digits and numbers that enable crypto transactions, is a tall order for gamers who got their start with cartridge and compact disc-based gaming in the 1980s and 1990s.
Players Abandoned by Studios Making Quick Money
The arrival of the first programmable blockchain in 2015 redefined the decentralization of money. It also changed the way to view what is owned. Players trapped in isolated ecosystems were suddenly intrigued. Maybe they didn’t have to tell their families that they spent $100 on a virtual weapon upgrade. They could sell them on the Blockchain, and no one would be the wiser, no big deal. The price to pay? Manage wallets, private keys and crypto addresses.
Gamers have always been more tech-savvy than the general population, so blockchain shouldn’t be a huge leap, a walk in the park. This, unfortunately, is a mistaken idea. It turns out that Web 3.0 has many challenges, one of which is ease of use, according to Jérôme de Tychey, of Web 3.0 game company Cometh. The president of Ethereum-France talked about some early mistakes by Web 3.0 game developers and how cutting-edge key management solutions paint a brighter future.
How Blockchains Evolved to Host Applications
On Ethereum, smart contracts encode logic for finance and other decentralized applications using a special programming language.
An Ethereum developer activates a smart by sending it to a specific address on Ethereum. Later, Ethereum participants can use their own addresses to interact with a smart contract.
To send funds to a smart contract, a user must sign the transaction with a string of digits and numbers called a private key. A private key authorizes output streams from a crypto address.
For most crypto transactions, the crypto wallet software signs the payments. Vendors create a seed phrase, a group of 24 words that they can use to help users recover lost keys. A user who loses their seed phrase loses access to crypto.
Blockchain Game Developers Forgot about Gamers
Blockchain gaming companies have so far relied on gamers to protect the keys that govern access to game assets. What appears to be a perfectly reasonable expectation for gamers who are expected to be tech-savvy, is not actually so, according to Jérôme de Tychey, founder and CEO of Cometh and president of Ethereum-France:
“Difficult questions arise once the player has to use [his] key, how to pay for gas? How to relay transactions? How to update the game from what just happened in the chain?”
These questions merely scratch the surface of deeper issues plaguing blockchain gaming. According to de Tychey, game developers tried to make life easier for players through various techniques, including storing the key in relatively secure locations and using remote key management.
Account abstraction allows a player to manage their addresses and schedule them with better experiences using a smart contract that could allow players to create a trusted session to authorize many small transactions.
By Audy Castaneda
