You should check out enjincoin and their thread here on the forums. It is very similar to everything you outlined here. However, they moreso focused on the marketplace sense of gaming rather than the longevity of in game currency. I think the gaming industry is a boom waiting to happen for an altcoin.
Hey, we already know about enjincoin! And we also agree with your thoughts, gaming has a huge potential for altcoins.
Interesting post OP. I support what you're saying 100%.
One thing to mention, if it becomes possible to sell in game items through a 3rd party, second hand, market via crypto. While that would be great(!) selling prices would likely be much lower than buying prices similar to how baseball card shops and collectible outlet operate.
If someone owns a baseball card worth $100 they might only get $50 for it if they try to sell it to a shop that deals in collectibles. The same principle could apply to a 3rd party that buys in game items. The only way they could turn a profit is to buy at a lower price than they sell.
It could also open the door to crooks and scammers stealing in game items (which are less protected than crypto) & cashing out via crypto -- basically money laundering.
What might really be cool is if a big name game like "starcraft 3" had micro transactions and all of it was in crypto. That way it would force people to use crypto (which could be much easier and more intuitive than using fiat).
About the microtransactions on big name games: it's just a matter of time, it's bound to happen.
The concept is smart. The potential for a huge monopoly being formed with the first big crypto-gaming token is something gaming companies should soon realize, if they haven't already. Such tokens geared towards giving players a way to not only transact with, but could also serve as a type of investment vehicle for those wishing to support such a system. Digital assets holding value as a commodity, assets that were previously either impossible or far to difficult to sell, suddenly would have a very real, measurable and liquid value.
This will not be ignored by the big boys.
I think they've already realized, but since they're all big companies they wouldn't go on and do something that's not fully regulated or on the grey area legally speaking.
I think it's pretty sad that Steam has such a big opportunity here but their marketplace is killed with the fees. Furthermore, there's no way to get the money from Steam balance over to actual cash. These up and coming altcoins will definitely be big competitors for the Steam marketplace. It's possible that an altcoin could be integrated into the marketplace, but I don't know if Steam is ready to give up their nice % returns off trades. The push towards the gaming industry is not something that should be ignored at all.
I don't see Steam opening up their marketplace to the world of altcoins anytime soon, they have it all for themselves now
That's really the only thing I don't like with games, anything you spend your money on would eventually become useless. If you ponder deep enough about it, it'll give you and existential crisis.
I still wonder how it'll allow the value to be kept though. Say I bought a few wheat from a farming game and that is discontinued. Are you saying I SHOULD be able to take that value and send it to a shooting game?
In the world of crypto, that's not an issue because you can always exchange your assets for the currency of your choosing. For example, in our case, you could sell your game-assets for Ethereum and so on. If you'd like to learn more about this we encourage you to check out our homepage at
https://e11.ioThis is a very interesting concept but I feel quite difficult to implement. It would have to have the support of many of the different games producers to work as I don't see it working simply P2P.
We believe new industry leaders will rise or at least the boutique ones will be able to have a large market chunk.