There's a lot of discussion about how the Zynga poker application would work with VIA/XCH on this thread. I figure I can give an educated opinion on the matter. While this is my opinion, keep in mind it's very speculative as there is little information about what Zynga is doing other than a phone message screenshot and a prior post in the Counterparty thread. However, given my background, I figure my opinion could help shed some light on the matter.
First, I played poker professionally from 2001 until 2010. I had reasonable success in poker (won a WSOP bracelet, had my own character in a video game, and had a monthly column in a major poker publication). Through almost a decade of playing full time, I gained a deep understanding of the mechanics of the game, casino motivations, and gambling in general. Oddly enough, I quit playing poker professionally in 2010 to help start a social gaming company called Unveil Games (Initially funded by a handful of name poker pros). We created a game called TrafficKing where we knocked off Farmville (a Zynga game), keeping the same game mechanics but essentially reskinning it so that it would be appealing to the male demographic on Facebook. In the process, we closely studied all of Zynga's succesful games, in an effort to find the most effective viral loops. The game we created was both incredibly comical and fun to play, but unfortunately Facebook changed some of their newsfeed policies which adversely affected small developers like ourselves. We eventually shut the company down in 2012, which is around the time I found crypto.
As far as what I think Zynga's plans are, I'm suspecting that Zynga is going to be building a poker application where pot/hand settlement occurs on the VIA blockchain. Unless my understanding of crypto is flawed, Viacoin is actually the only vehicle where I can see this happening. On average online poker hands take about 1 min to play out. Having hand/pot settlement on the Bitcoin blockchain just wouldn't be feasible given Bitcoin has 10 min confirmations (which is consistent with what was said in the screenshot about "the most key aspect being speed"). VIA on the otherhand has 24 second confirmations, which could work. So a player would play out a poker hand within a Zynga client, and upon completion of the hand it is recorded on the blockchain and settlement occurs in about 24 seconds (likely before the completion of the next hand).
Also, in a post by TechGen in the Counterparty thread about a week ago, he/she mentions a big social gaming company plans to use VIA / XCH and that the company even planned to issue shares through platform as well. I personally don't see this happening or if it does it will be a long time from now given the regulatory hurdles an event like this would present the company. However what would be amazing is if Zynga managed some sort of rewards program through Zynga coins issued on Clearinghouse. It's designed for something like that, allowing easy distributions back to players that hold Zynga chips based upon the overall revenue generation of the game. Now that would be interesting.
Funny, given my background in gambling, social gaming and crypto (specifically with VIA and XCH), I should be reaching out to Zynga to try and help them in any way that I can to get this project off the ground. And if it doesn't materialize, hell, I'm thinking I should try and get a team together and build it.
WOW, you won a WSOP bracelet, you are a cerebrity
It is cool that you can help VIA&XCH
