From Atari to Axie Infinity: The evolution of Blockchain Gaming

Any digital activity which is for the purpose of amusement can be considered a game. It is considered one of the most profitable entertainment industries in the world. In this article we will review the history of the traditional gaming and how this industry got intertwined with new technologies which resulted in Blockchain games.

Early days

When it comes to the history of gaming, most people consider Atari as the first console game; but it’s not true.

The beginning of the gaming industry goes back to 1940 when Dr. Edward Uhler Condon unveiled a game machine in the New York’s fair. It was based on a mathematical ancient game. In 1967 the prototype “Brown Box’’ was released. This game had the capability to be programmed to play new games like ping pong.

Magnavox bought the license of the game and released it in 1972.

Due to bad marketing campaigns, this gaming project was not successful. Moreover, the mindset of the Americans was not ready to accept the concept of in-home gaming. However, this failed game was the beginning of everything.

Atari and Arcade

It was in 1966 that the electro-mechanical games of “Crown special soccer” and “Periscope” were released by Sega and Tailo and the public started to show interest in arcade gaming.

Nolan Bushnell was considered the godfather of gaming and he was the one who started the large-scale gaming community by founding Atari in 1972.

Arcade machines were spreading in all public areas like restaurants and shopping malls. In the next decade more than 15 companies tried to contribute to the industry by developing new games.

Multi-player gaming

The gaming machines which were distributed among bowling balls and public entertainment centres created a tendency towards competitions among people. It was a new form of hobby in which people tried to compete against each other using video games. The scores were recorded and shown on a big monitor, and it encouraged multi-player gaming in the industry.

At first gamers compete using one screen, but in 1973 a new game was released called “Empire” and users could compete on separate screens. Up to 8 people could play in this multi-player game.

In-Home Gaming

In 1970s many technological advances happened which paved the path for the progress of video games. The development of the personal computers happened in this decade and the gaming consoles were mass-produced. Intel invented the first microprocessor in the world and more professional games started to be developed. In 1975 Gunfight was created which was a human-to-human combat shooter.

In 1977 Atari unveiled “Atari VCS” but the sales were not satisfactory; due to the high expenses and the fact that people were getting familiar with having a colour-TV at home. However, by the integration of the microprocessor in 1980 the sales of Atari accelerated to 2 million and more people were encouraged to try in-home gaming.

One of the channels which boosted the gaming community was the related magazines such as “Creative computing” and “Computer Gaming World.”

Online Gaming

Regardless of the type of industry, whenever the supply exceeds the demand, there will be a downward trend in the market. In 1983 the market of the gaming industry in America crashed. Many companies tried to jump on the hype and too many consoles were produced. The new games were not interesting enough and it all resulted in the downfall of the market.

As the gaming industry was going down, home computers were becoming more affordable for the retail users. The more computer science advances, the better gaming development will get. The new generations of games were more complex, and users could connect their computers to play together using the LAN. The fact that gamers could interact with each other resulted in the community growth.

Before that, some experimentations had taken place in Japan with telephone lines to transfer data between consoles. Users could download games using their fixed telephone numbers.

The world wide web software was put in the public domain in 1993 but it was not powerful enough to host the games. Atari and Nintendo tried to accelerate online gaming, but it was not successful due to the slow internet connections.

Sega Dreamcast was the first internet-ready console which was released in 2000. Even though it was a big step in the gaming industry, it was too expensive and failed. The community and the infrastructure were not ready for the technology.

Many of the old gaming projects faced failure. However, they all played a key role in paving the path for the future gaming projects and other developers stopped on the shoulders of the ones who failed.

In early 2000 computer processor technology was ready to host high graphics and more people were joining the internet.

With the emergence of mobile phones in 2007 gaming found a new form of mainstream and it took over console gaming in 2015. Even though mobile gaming has attracted a lot of attention, it has some limitations such as small screen, not enough internal memories, and low processor speed.

VR Gaming

Oculus is a Virtual reality infrastructure company which produces gaming-related hardware. Using Oculus gamers can experience an interactive immersive 3D game instead of a boring small screen. The progress of the language processing artificial intelligence, the voice recognition technology and deep learning are intertwined with the advancements of the VR gaming industry.

GameFi

Blockchain technology is growing extremely fast and since it is intertwined with so many different industries, the advancements in the other sectors will push DeFi & Blockchain as well. Gaming industry is one of the sectors which is paving the path for the crypto enthusiasts to grow their asset’s use cases.

Playing online games is no longer just a leisure activity. With the rise of GameFi, NFTs and DeFi, some gamers are making ends meet using their digital income, and some are even earning more than a normal 9 to 5 employee.

The gaming sector revenue in Germany in 2020 was EUR 8.5 billion. The international sales are predicted to be more than $200 billion by 2025. Play-to-earn games are becoming a big deal in the gaming industry, and they have the potential to shift many cultural paradigms. With the rise of GameFi, adults who gave up gaming in their late teens, might get back in the field and give up their normal jobs for it!

GameFi refers to Blockchain games in which the player can earn economic incentives. The name is the abbreviation of gaming and finance. The process of earning the prizes will be just like a normal game. The player will get compensated by doing some tasks and accelerating levels in the game.

The Tokens gained by Players are mostly based on ERC-20 standard of the Ethereum Blockchain.

Gaming in Metaverse

The difference between games inside Metaverse and the traditional free to play games is the fact that the users can earn something by playing games. These incentives can be anything; an in-game currency, NFTs, etc. The rewards won by the game players can be cryptocurrencies, virtual lands in Metaverse, virtual outfits, avatars, etc. the assets will be traded in the virtual marketplace as NFTs.

NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens) make it possible for the Players to monetize their virtual activities in many ways. It increases the security, authenticity, and the control over the assets. Copyright, exploitation rights and the ownership of the assets will be collected or transferred across Metaverses and games. And all these functions are happening through usage of NFTs.

This feature is extremely attractive in developing countries; since there is high inflation and lack of employment. GameFi can save lives by providing monetization and asset validation.

Blockchain Games & P2E

Traditional games like “Call of duty” require gamers to buy licenses or activate subscriptions before they can start the game. But the new generation of gaming is so much cooler and it functions the other way around! Instead of investing to play, you will get paid after playing.

P2E is the abbreviation of Play to earn which refers to getting incentivized by playing virtual games. An example of a P2E game is Axie infinity. Some other examples of P2E games would be Zed Run, Battle Racers Splinterlands and Embersword.

Research done by Outlier Ventures, a Blockchain venture capital company, shows that users spend time on blockchain games 5 times more than traditional games with a console.

Axie Infinity

Axie Infinity is the most famous Metaverse game which is used by many users to make ends meet. Some people play it to earn their flat rent. It has about 2 million monthly active users. These numbers show how much the community of gamers are willing to switch to Metaverse instead of staying in the traditional world of gaming just for the fact that they can get incentivized for their online actions.

The Future of Gaming

Now 1400 Blockchain games are listed on DappRadar. as the blockchain industry is growing, we will see more P2E games on multiple chains. The combination of the new financial systems and gaming is an interesting concept, and it will attract more users in the future.

About Half of blockchain active wallets are connected to games and almost 10 million active monthly users are playing the top 10 blockchain games.

It is predicted that Gaming in 2025 will have a futuristic form which is intangible for us in 2022; the industry is growing so fast that so much can happen in 3 years, and we are at the edge of jumping from one level to the next.

About Paycer
Paycer’s goal is to aggregate DeFi investments multi-chain and make them available to users without the need for their own wallet nor the expertise. This should allow anyone to generate a passive income in a world where banks no longer pay interest. Hence the Paycer team is developing a bridge protocol for DeFi and TradFi to combine the best of both worlds and make it available for retail clients #CeDeFi. Apart from the technical matters and the creation of a super easy to use final product. The goal is also to create a regulatory framework that allows the legal operation of a DeFi platform within the EU first and subsequently in other regions.

Currently, a DeFi platform is already available on paycer.finance on which Paycer tokens PCR can be claimed and staked. More features will go live soon. At the moment on Polygon but other blockchains will be integrated in the near future. Paycer is also working on a banking partnership to be able to combine DeFi with a traditional bank account. In addition to the development of the DeFi platform, the development of the final consumer product is also in progress.

Be sure to follow Paycer on social media for all the latest updates on product development. We have further exciting announcements to share very soon.

Stay in touch with Paycer:
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Sources:

1. Burke, Jamie. “MetaFi: DeFi for the Metaverse.” Outlier Ventures, https://outlierventures.io/research/metafi-defi-for-the-metaverse/. Accessed 1 June 2022.
2. Chikhani, Riad. “The History Of Gaming: An Evolving Community.” TechCrunch, 31 October 2015, https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/31/the-history-of-gaming-an-evolving-community/. Accessed 13 June 2022.