Game Development
A summary of the creative and technical requirements of game development within the Polkadot ecosystem.
Last updated
A summary of the creative and technical requirements of game development within the Polkadot ecosystem.
Last updated
Disclaimer: This article is written by Dot.alert() contributors for educational purposes only. This article should not be used as a substitute for competent legal or financial advice from a licensed professional in your country.
Game development is the sum of all the creative processes that result in the popularisation and mass adoption of gameverses. Concepts, plots, character blueprints and marketplace offerings all play a part in building a dominant theme and atmosphere for games. In turn, the creative story-telling and in-game incentives evolve to reflect a unique brand.
Generally-speaking, creating a gameverse requires developers to build upon a specific concept that determines the project's roadmap.
At the centre of a gameverse, there is a "lore" which sets the background for the evolution of the storyline, the characters, the aesthetics of the game, and the game mechanics. The lore is usually the point of entry to the gameverse and is often shared with the general public prior to the beta release of the game. When presenting their gameverses, teams attempt to motivate and engage potential players through careful choice of words, sketches, website animations, background music, and voice-over narration.
The actual game play is usually broken into various stages which involve changing locations, re-designing characters, transferring items, and defining missions. Most game developers try to make room for the creative use of in-game assets sold at marketplaces so that participants don't feel constrained during the gameplay. In fact, this strategy can serve as an additional way to provide a rewarding experience to seasoned players without creating extra incentives.
However, deploying a gameverse is primarily tied to empowering players to go on specific quests, complete certain tasks, and collect various rewards. Some games offer a play-to-earn model whereby users can tally their gains as they complete individualised challenges. Others adopt more dynamic systems with randomness and algorithms so that players never know where they stand in the overall competition until the results are published on a leaderboard.
One of the most challenging aspects of game development is the production stage, as it requires considerable resources to be invested and preserved well-ahead of time. This means that gaming projects that sustain their developments through blockchain-based revenues (i.e transaction fees, marketplaces sales, staking, etc.) could face financial difficulties during crypto markets crashes. For developing teams, this could very well mean losing valuable team members and deprecating certain features of their gameverse.
Building gameverses falls at the intersection of multiple creative and technical fields such as Market research, UX/UI design, Animation, Content writing, Token engineering, and Smart contract development. It is not always possible to source skilled contributors to develop the initial concepts as described on paper for a given network. And so, project teams might be compelled to migrate to an alternative blockchain and potentially forsake some of their most active community members and supporters.
Gameverses can create unequal gaming environments where off-chain rules give additional advantages to a few insiders or early adopters at the expense of more active participants. This is especially true for play-to-earn games that are entirely built on-top of limited edition NFTs with few secondary markets. The risk is that, over time, players who perceive themselves as “disadvantaged” will lose interest and abandon the game entirely.
