Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Technology – The Future of Gaming

Millions of gamers across the world are missing out on playing some of the biggest titles in the industry, simply due to the lack of owning the powerful hardware required to run the games effectively. That’s why we at Playkey are bringing blockchain on board, to move the cloud gaming industry to the next level. Here I will walk you through some of the key parts of the process, including some of the stumbling blocks.

The Innovation

Cloud gaming is not a new concept, but many have encountered fundamental problems, namely internet quality and service difficulties. If the first problem was improving over the years, the second was causing some serious difficulties that stopped the development of this technology for a while.

For a long time Playkey was using expensive GPU servers. Now, we’ve realized how to do it differently. The service team decided to create a completely new innovation using the general decentralized system. By using it, the owner of the upgraded gaming PC would be able to rent out their equipment. Gamers will then have access to said equipment for a low budget cost. This technology will give users an opportunity to create more cloud services which will decrease the cost of that service. Eventually, the number of users willing to use it will grow as well.

Whether users bought their hardware for mining or specifically for gaming is not important for the service. Renting their computers to other gamers would be a more profitable way compared to mining cryptocurrency.

Why Blockchain?

The kind of attributes blockchain technology has, lend themselves to decentralized gaming perfectly. When we first started, our objective was to empower gamers by allowing those with low spec hardware, and old computers, to be able to play the most demanding games in terms of processing power. We did this by hosting different servers across the globe that gamers could connect to and play via our cloud based platform, thus negating the need for their own computer systems to be up to scratch.

With blockchain technology we can enrich this experience even further for gamers, who’ll be able to play and pay for their gaming, using the Playkey token (PKT), while harnessing powerful gaming PCs of individuals across the world who are ready to rent out their home gaming machine on the Playkey decentralized ecosystem. This means gamers will not have to invest in expensive gaming consoles and other hardware. The more we analyze blockchain technology in 2017, the more it became apparent that it is a perfect fit for what we are trying to achieve as a company. Blockchain’s distributed network naturally facilitates the sharing of participants’ server power. Rewarding people who lease their servers via tokenization will accelerate adoption of the Playkey platform and allow us to compete among the more established gaming providers, both on console and online.

The ICO

The decision to launch with an ICO was paramount for our mission, but during our research we uncovered a number of factors that we considered before proceeding with one. Firstly, the product itself should already exist. This may sound obvious, but the description of a product doesn’t always mean a final version is going to be a reality, so it’s good to at least have a prototype product in order to give developers a reality check. The team involved is also a clear indicator of the likelihood of succeeding. If the team was thrown together a matter of months ago, or are proceeding with an idea not properly thought through – there is a significant risk nothing will result. There are often times when a team member decides to stand down from a project, sometimes just a few days before the ICO they were promoting is set to take place.

It is also key to consider the audience of the product. Although it isn’t ultimately a deciding factor, it certainly gives you something to think about. If you launch a blockchain product, you won’t need to explain its purpose to investors and users for quite a while. Similar companies are already attracting more funds by ICO than by venture fund investments. But if your product is from the real economy, then it’s worth considering how difficult it’s going to be to reach your audience.

The ICO for PKT took place in October - November 2017, where we raised just over $10.5M during the sale of 60,000,000 tokens. During this time we participated in top blockchain conferences all over the world, from CoinAgenda Global in Las Vegas to the World Blockchain Forum in London, won Startup Sauna in Singapore, formalized a partnership with the South Korean Coinlink market, and obtained support from professionals from industries ranging from blockchain to VR.

The Cryptocurrency

The Playkey Tokens had a set price during the ICO, but now the value of the tokens can be altered by a number of factors, including mechanisms of supply and demand on the market, the availability of a product ready for commercial implementation and many others. There are no major fluctuations on the market right now, nor is there a large quantity of PKT. Many people prefer to hang onto their tokens until PKT is released on major exchanges, or its value goes up. As things stand, the ICO is over and the process of developing the product has begun. PKT will therefore not be considered a utilitarian unit of calculation within the ecosystem until its factual appearance (the end of 2018 according to our plan), and the demand is not increasing on a daily basis. At the moment, what PKT represents on the exchanges is an opportunity to stock up on the tokens at a comparatively low price for the purpose of strategic, long-term investment.

In fact, the very nature of user interaction, means the price of PKT will increase over time, as do actions of the key investors. At first about half of the PKTs will remain off the market. Institutional investors put money into the project at the presale stage, and they’re focused on the long term. To stimulate their interest, the Playkey Foundation will regularly issue reports on the company’s development and on measures to stimulate growth in the PKT’s price. We will work with key investors personally and assist them with their strategic decisions.

We will also undertake efforts to stimulate demand from gamers and to attract new miners. This can raise the price of the token and can make it a more profitable asset.

And finally, we have a department that will work like a central bank. Two reserves of money will be created: in tokens and in fiat money. Depending on market fluctuations, it will be profitable for Playkey to sell and buy tokens and add to both reserves. So, we plan to regulate the PKT’s uneven growth and stabilize the market.

Of course, not all the instruments will operate right away. It will take about a year after the launch of the decentralized gaming platform for the ecosystem to develop. During this time the PKT’s value will be supported by the foundation, and short-term investors will make way for those who have acquired tokens with a long-term strategic perspective in mind.

Smart Contracts

One popular stumbling block with ICOs are the smart contracts used to release the tokens and sell them to investors. It is a very specialist area and since the increase in usage of cryptocurrency and ICOs is such a recent development, the demand for knowledgeable specialists still greatly exceeds supply. This means preparing for a smart contract can take almost as long as actually writing it. Whether you outsource, use a special platform or write the contract yourself – there are pitfalls. Outsourcing such a new and specific skills is extremely costly. The use of a special platform is useful for a one off ICO, but they also charge a fee for their services.

Which leaves the option of writing the contract yourself, as we did with Playkey - due in part to the fact that we had no real-time constraint. It took about a month. Most of this time was spent studying the necessary language, logic, syntax, and examples. We decided not to outsource the task in order to increase our knowledge base, since in the future we will need original smart contracts for our decentralized gaming platform to function.

What’s in it for Users?

Once the decentralized ecosystem launches towards the end of the year, miners will have the opportunity to make money using the service. A miner’s income will depend on several factors. First, the amount depends on the computer: The more powerful it is, the more value it offers. Users are willing to pay more for such a computer.

Secondly, the price will be determined by the market. A miner posts his price, and if there is user demand, then the miner will earn based on the specified price and the number of users playing on it. To precisely predict the amount now is very difficult.

Plus, of course, there is the obvious benefit for gamers whose equipment isn’t quite capable of running the most high-end games. They will be able to do so for what is a much cheaper cost than keeping up with the ever spinning cycle of gaming consoles.

The cryptocurrency and blockchain technology in Playkey give fantastic opportunities for scaling, decentralization, and an accelerated transition of the gaming industry to the cloud. Users will get the chance to independently create more and more cloud servers, as well as a reliable method of making deals between the seller and the buyer, based on smart contracts and excluding intermediaries.

Egor Gurjev: founder and mastermind of the project, serial entrepreneur, and manager. As a schoolboy, he spent less on dinners, textbooks, and tutors so that he could buy his favorite games. Before creating the cloud-based gaming platform, Egor was successful in other high-tech areas. Egor’s first company Enaza is still successfully operating now. It develops online stores offering digital content, for large telecom companies and retail chains. A division of the company that developed a platform for selling digital content by subscription was sold to Softline, a large international IT company. Now Egor focuses on managing Playkey, strategic business development, and working with key partners.