DecentralGames - Why crypto gambling has failed to take off…yet
The original Bitcoin 0.1.0 repository even included a framework to create a digital poker game, yet this never came to fruition. There’s a theory that this gambling app was meant to provide utility to the bitcoin currency and bootstrap its value when it had no initial use.
A clear use case
Providing sudo-anonymous and borderless peer to peer exchange of value coupled with a decentralized virtual machine, Ethereum seemed perfectly poised to usher in a new era of online gambling - one where open source game logic ensured players of the fairness of games.
In 2017, 167 casino & gambling ICOs raised a collective $640 million, using smart contracts as a pitch for transparency of game logic, self custody, low fees, and frictionless gameplay. And yet, today gambling Dapp usage is miniscule, even overshadowed in volume by collective trading cards and video game digital items. So - what happened?
What happened
The problems that prevented on-chain casino platforms from gaining mass adoption compared to their centralized counterparts revolve around poor end user experience. Signatures in annoying Metamask popups for each play, Ethereum mainchain wait times of up to 15-20 seconds, and pricey gas costs for every in-game transaction are the trifecta that plagues Dapp UX. Centralized sites still win out when it comes to crypto gambling because they deliver a much more seamless in game experience. Users are able to play games with instant transactions while still benefiting from crypto as a fiat alternative to onboard funds.
Decentral Games
As a legally compliant casino operator, Decentral Games solves these UX problems while maintaining decentralization of game logic and user funds. The Decentral Games transaction architecture delivers instant, gasless, and signatureless crypto gameplay directly from each user’s wallet. Instant transactions are achieved through Matic Network, an account-based Plasma sidechain on Ethereum. Matic enables any Ethereum token deposited to achieve 1-2 transactional finality instead of 15 seconds, and scales to over 16,000 transactions per second rather than 15. This is a huge improvement for in-game experience, as no one wants to wait more than a few seconds for their bets to go through in a roulette game.
On top of this, Decentral blog Games uses a pre-authorization and meta-transaction architecture to remove signatures while also paying gas on behalf of all users to enable gameplay in ERC20 coins such as MANA even when they may not have any ETH. With this novel approach around simplifying transactions for the user, Decentral Games delivers a product that mimics the UX of a centralized platform while maintaining self custody and on-chain logic of a decentralized application.
A new frontier
Despite their innovation in the open source game logic and funds realm, most gambling Dapp clients feature the same dull two-dimensional web interface seen in this screenshot from Edgeless:
Metaverse-based gaming in platforms such as Decentraland gives users an entirely new experience - the ability to walk up to a table in a virtual casino and play roulette or blackjack with live avatars is a novel and unprecedented social experience in crypto gaming. Decentral Games has partnered with the Vegas City district to bring these innovations to life in projects such as the Flamingos mega-casino, which will set high expectations for the quality and performance of Dapps in Decentraland.
As a game developer, you get to craft a completely new experience by designing precisely how the casino’s architecture looks from the outside, what kind of decor surrounds the gaming floor on the inside, and how the user interacts with the game in three dimensions - clicking on chips to pick them up, aiming and clicking on the table, reaching out to spin the roulette wheel. The Metaverse adds an entirely new dimension to crypto gambling:
Real casino social experience
On top of the three dimensional nature of the games, multiplayer dynamics provide the ability to play games while “looking” at and talking with other players in a virtual world - Decentral Games casinos are an entirely new category of Dapp. Not only is it a gambling Dapp, it’s a social network Dapp. Being able to play the games with your friends in a virtual world will prove to attract more return users than a two dimensional dark webpage with an IM trollbox.
To the future
It’s still early for crypto, but we finally have the tools to build that killer gambling Dapp; and the innovation doesn’t stop with crypto gambling. Decentraland is more than just a platform for blockchain games. Decentraland’s community and user base is 25,000 strong and familiar with crypto wallets. Most have crypto in their Metamask, and all have a vested interest in the project succeeding. The community is full of people who love to test out and give feedback on any Dapp.
The tech Decentral Games will debut in Decentraland may very well permeate to other sectors of crypto as it solves the UX issue of transactional speed, cost, and throughput - all other apps needing rapid easy payments could benefit from this approach. Models that prove to flourish in Decentraland - NFT digital property, rapid non-signature self custody crypto payments, etc - may ultimately spread to the real, non-virtual world sooner than we expect.
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