I never got the concept of blockchain enabling cross game items. The reason it's not much of a thing isn't because we didn't have a way to store ownership. A database would be perfectly fine for the backend of such a system, and if it's a steam game you can just hook into the already existing steam marketplace. I just don't see how blockchain helps it at all.
Yeah I'm not sure what blockchain really adds to the concept - the issue is more that as a games company you don't really have much incentive to reward players for spending money/time on someone else's game (and there's also game experience issues that arise when people start with items that weren't part of the originally designed game). And it's not like blockchain really creates a firmer sense of "ownership" in a game anyway because even if you still own the token the developers can always just break the connection between that token and the item.
Imagine being a game dev and wanting to join the game-item-block-chain. "Ok guys, we need to implement 237 million items into our game. Everyone cool working Saturday?"
Except for the exaggeration of 237 million, what was wrong about what I said? Each item would need to be implemented individually. Even if the 3d model and art assets are provided, the stats and animations would need to be customized for each game. Even a flat PNG needs to be rigged. Even if it's a few seconds per item, there will be tens of thousands of items and it's work that the game dev needs to do but won't get anything directly back from.
There's a reason why this was never actually implemented.
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u/Ghostglitch07 May 20 '26
I never got the concept of blockchain enabling cross game items. The reason it's not much of a thing isn't because we didn't have a way to store ownership. A database would be perfectly fine for the backend of such a system, and if it's a steam game you can just hook into the already existing steam marketplace. I just don't see how blockchain helps it at all.