Blockchain Based Video Game Sales

[Skipple]

Hi everyone, 

So as a disclaimer: I only have a rudimentary understanding of how blockchain technology works, so what I am pondering may be completely impossible depending on the logistics of the technology. 

 

Question: Why aren't game developers and sellers (ie. Steam) looking towards the blockchain as proof of ownership of videogames as a form of DRM. This would allow users to purchase and verify ownership of a video game licence against the blockchain, rather than a centrally hosted credential based server by the developer. It could allow for game re-selling with the advantage of giving a cut to the developers on the resell (a la NFTs). I haven't heard any chatter about this yet, so I am assuming I am missing something when it comes to this topic. 

[delph]

Blockchains are just databases. The point of a blockchain is to inspire "trust" (the financial term) without the need of a third party (such as would normally be a bank, gold, or a government body.) For companies, the third party is themselves - so there's not much benefit of using a blockchain. It'd be easier to develop a method of resale within their own app.

 

There is also a hard cap of transactions per second on blockchains - if Steam were to put all of the games bought and sold on a blockchain, they'd quickly end up with writing errors because there'd be too many attempts per second. This is also why Bitcoin and other blockchain-based currencies are not really viable as a world currency.

[Avocado Diaboli]

2 hours ago, Skipple said:

It could allow for game re-selling with the advantage of giving a cut to the developers on the resell (a la NFTs)

I've been mentioning something like this for months, that, if NFTs had a legitimate use, it would be the resale of software. But that's never going to happen, because why would a company allow you to resell your copy of a piece of software or a game for a small cut of the sales price when they can just not allow it entirely and instead sell another copy for the full amount without having to split the profits with you? They'd in essence be creating their own competition.

 

This really isn't something that any company will allow. If companies manufacturing physical goods today could stop you from selling what you've bought, they would. Microsoft tried when they intended to control the resale of used game discs on the Xbox One. They legally can't. And that's where the solution has to come from, the law needs to recognize that a game or software or other digital good you've bought is in fact a purchase and a transfer of ownership of said copy and not just a license agreement that allows you to use it. Basically, the first-sale doctrine needs to be applied to digital goods. That's where blockchain technology could actually be useful for a change instead of just a massive waste of energy and resources and stop being just a playground for wannabe investors.

[A51UK]

4 hours ago, delph said:

Blockchains are just databases.

Blockchains are not a database nowhere near if you try to use it a database it is very poor one, It is more of a distributed logging system. Blockchains are nothing more than a logging system. There are some use of blockchains for games, but nothing to do with the gameplay itself (that be a terrible idea). The area that I can see is (log errors, database transaction log for easy validation, log of sales, DRM, log of resell, log of hardware it's running on (part of DRM)) but most of this can be done with the use of blockchains. 

 

Bitcoin and other like NFT just use blockchains as a logging system to log the transaction and validation it nothing more.  The idea is that more them one person would have a copy of the blockchains and there could validation them if different something is wrong. 

 

There are smart contract that run on top of the blockchains but them are awful idea (e.g. slow, cannot be changed, error prone, hard to debug) the fact you cannot change it (e,g, to fix bugs) make it unless and awful for game and anything else. Just think how many bugs a game have when it first comes out but them get fix with smart contract you cannot fix them at all. 

[Sauron]

5 hours ago, Skipple said:

Why aren't game developers and sellers (ie. Steam) looking towards the blockchain as proof of ownership of videogames as a form of DRM. This would allow users to purchase and verify ownership of a video game licence against the blockchain, rather than a centrally hosted credential based server by the developer.

It would still only work through an external check. Modern DRM isn't bypassed by just blocking the publisher's servers, the game itself is cracked so it doesn't phone home. The arms race is all about the game checking itself in a way pirates can't easily bypass.

 

There are shockingly few things that might actually benefit from using a blockchain considering how hyped it is.

[tikker]

10 hours ago, delph said:

There is also a hard cap of transactions per second on blockchains - if Steam were to put all of the games bought and sold on a blockchain, they'd quickly end up with writing errors because there'd be too many attempts per second. This is also why Bitcoin and other blockchain-based currencies are not really viable as a world currency.

There wouldn't be writing errors. It would just take time waiting for confirmations depending on which network they'd use.

6 hours ago, A51UK said:

There are smart contract that run on top of the blockchains but them are awful idea (e.g. slow, cannot be changed, error prone, hard to debug) the fact you cannot change it (e,g, to fix bugs) make it unless and awful for game and anything else. Just think how many bugs a game have when it first comes out but them get fix with smart contract you cannot fix them at all. 

You wouldn't put the game on the blockchain. Just the transaction or proof of ownership.

 

The main benefit from blockchains will be in the financial aspect I think, such as banks dealing directly with the transactions. Unless there is a significant risk/fear of Steam suddenly saying you didn't buy a game or your bank messing with the transaction to help Steam in such a way, I don't see the immediate benefit of it for online game shops.

[A51UK]

18 hours ago, tikker said:

 

You wouldn't put the game on the blockchain. Just the transaction or proof of ownership.

 

I was not thinking of games on the blockchain but more use of blockchain in the games  for example (in MORPG user transaction, game errors, leaderboard, DRM). There a some user case that I can think of but I do not use blockchain for any of them. 

[wasab]

On 12/21/2021 at 7:16 AM, A51UK said:

I was not thinking of games on the blockchain but more use of blockchain in the games  for example (in MORPG user transaction, game errors, leaderboard, DRM). There a some user case that I can think of but I do not use blockchain for any of them. 

You should checkout defi kingdom and the facebook upcoming metaverse. 

[Kisai]

On 12/19/2021 at 10:01 PM, Skipple said:

Hi everyone, 

So as a disclaimer: I only have a rudimentary understanding of how blockchain technology works, so what I am pondering may be completely impossible depending on the logistics of the technology. 

 

Question: Why aren't game developers and sellers (ie. Steam) looking towards the blockchain as proof of ownership of videogames as a form of DRM. This would allow users to purchase and verify ownership of a video game licence against the blockchain, rather than a centrally hosted credential based server by the developer. It could allow for game re-selling with the advantage of giving a cut to the developers on the resell (a la NFTs). I haven't heard any chatter about this yet, so I am assuming I am missing something when it comes to this topic. 

 

Blockchain is not DRM, Blockchain is "chain of custody" checking. eg it could work to check who previously had something in their possession, as the logging is immutable (attempting to change it, breaks the encryption.)  So blockchain has more practical use with physical products, because you can't simply make a perfect copy, you have to make each product individually, thus every item will have it's input materials and where they came from logged into it, and everyone who touched it along the way is logged. So this only guarantees things like "Best before" dates and anti-counterfeiting features haven't been doctored.

 

But digital, every copy is perfect. So they will always have the same generated checksums in the blockchain. So as a sense, nobody can "own" "A copy" of the digital item, because the checksum is the same, only one person can have it. However... And this is the problem we see with NFT's, what if I DO change one bit? Let's say I was selling PDF's, and I append a unique page to each PDF that has the original purchase date and time, down to the microsecond on it. Now every digital copy ends up being unique. But now those unique copies have no value. This is why those procedurally generated monkeys really do have no value. They may be unique, but they are only trivially unique. Basically the equivalent of getting an "ultra rare" trading card or the winning lottery ticket, because the manufacturer produces exactly X many items, and only has sequential serials on them. They are only "rare" because the manufacturer chose to make them with a label as rare. They are all equal in value. There is nothing fundamentally different. With TCG games, yes maybe the printed stats have a meaning to the game, but nothing makes one card more valuable than another. If nobody uses the TCG as a game, and instead as a substitute for investment instruments, then the printed value is absolutely meaningless. You're then just trading on the claimed value, rather than the actual value.

 

 

This is why DRM doesn't work. Nobody cares that something isn't the original copy. If someone finds a rare version of a video game, because it was only produced in a certain market, that doesn't make it valuable. That just makes it an inferior version or a superior version, and the pirates will collect both, but nobody is playing either version over each other. You see this with English/Japanese localization where the censorship in the west is sometimes heavy handed, or absolutely silly. This results in "localized versions" being sold on steam, but "censorship removal" patches being right on the manufacturer's website. Steam is how the developer gets paid for it, so they don't care if you modify it. 

 

Which get's back to this problem of why "block chain" video games can not be a thing. There is nothing unique or rare about a digital asset. They can be duplicated infinitely, perfectly, and all "NFT"'s attempted to do was try to make digital assets rare so they can be treated like stocks. All the blockchain can do as far as video games goes is guarantee that the version published is the unmodified, authentic version. It can not guarantee that you own it, only that the copy you have is correct. If anything Blockchain will prevent people from modifying the game if it's used as a way to verify the game's integrity.