The significance of the existence of chain games: Why do we build Dark Forest?

Author: SeeDAO

Blockchain is the next generation Internet of Value, and digital assets need to interoperate with cryptocurrencies by default. This incentivizes game developers to build positive incentive structures for their players and communities.

Crypto is not some incremental innovation. On the contrary, it fundamentally opens up previously unimaginable ways of working, which is reflected in many fields: companies are reimagined as DAOs, traditional financial instruments are conceived as permissionless DeFi (Decentralized Finance, decentralized finance) ) agreements, laws conceived as smart contracts and more.

Important decentralized applications in the future will rely heavily on the new features provided by the blockchain, rather than just improving the logic of existing apps. This is the same pattern we’ve seen with previous computing platforms: smartphones, the World Wide Web, and personal computers. In the above examples, the longest-lasting and most impactful technology applications are those that use new technologies to create changes, rather than just polishing old things into more refined ones. Compare social media and portals, online shopping websites and electronic catalogs, or interactive TV and the Internet.

What does this mean for crypto gaming?

Encrypted native chain game

Games can serve as a bellwether for new technologies. It has high technical requirements but low risks. Compared with traditional business/financial applications, security and compliance issues are relatively less important, so rapid iteration can be achieved to explore the scalability and usability of new technologies. It would be short-sighted to be dismissive of a new platform that seems to “only” have games, and those with foresight would recognize this as a valuable testing environment. Think about it, too many new interaction modes and operating habits in the mobile era originated from early mobile games, such as “Doodle Jump”, “Cut the Rope” and “Angry Birds” 》(Angry Birds) and so on.

If we accept that games can serve as a bellwether for new technologies, and that new technologies tend to favor truly new features rather than incremental improvements, then the cutting edge of crypto app design over the next few years will be found in crypto-native games.

An excellent crypto-native game should be one that can adapt to the blockchain architecture development model and decentralization concept to the greatest extent:

• **The authenticity of game data is guaranteed by the blockchain. **Blockchain is not only used as a secondary storage for data or as a “mirror” of data in a server. All meaningful data should be stored on-chain – not just asset ownership. This allows on-chain games to take full advantage of blockchain’s programmability: permissionless, interoperable, transparent data storage.
• **The logic and rules in the game are implemented through smart contracts. **For example, gameplay such as the battle mode in the game, not just ownership, are all implemented on the chain.
• **The game is developed in accordance with the principles of open source sharing. **Both contracts and clients should be open source. Third-party developers have the power to customize or even fork their own games through plugins, third-party clients, interoperable smart contracts, and even redeployable contracts. This in turn allows developers to tap into the ideas of the entire community to export and build upon.
• **The game is client independent. **This is closely related to the above three points. To judge whether a game is a truly crypto-native game, you only need to consider this question: “If the client provided by the developer disappears tomorrow, can this game still be played?” What if game data can be stored on the chain without permission? , and the game logic can be executed without permission and the community can interact with the smart contract without relying on the interface provided by the core team, then the answer is often yes.
• **Games can carry real-world digital assets. **Blockchain is the next generation Internet of Value, and digital assets need to interoperate with cryptocurrencies by default. This incentivizes game developers to build positive incentive structures for their players and communities.

It’s worth noting that the following will not be considered crypto-native games:

• Traditional mobile shooter with only on-chain wallet integrated.
• The battle logic occurs off-chain, with only the trading card game (TCG) whose card assets are stored as ERC-721 tokens on Ethereum.
• DeFi applications under the banner of “gamification”. These applications may be innovative in their own right, but the applications we are more interested in are games first and foremost, rather than financial instruments or protocols. Games that are essentially speculation on NFTs will fall into this category.

This is not to say that only crypto-native games can succeed (either commercially or artistically), but other games that use blockchain in weaker ways cannot. However, if we look at the long-term impact of blockchain, crypto-native gaming is definitely one of the most important parts.

These games seek to innovate entirely new interactions and gameplay mechanics, rather than merely making incremental improvements to existing games. They provide us with a simulation sandbox, a microcosm of a future digital world, and then use games to understand how these mechanics will function in the future world. Games may be on the top of this world’s wave, and they can take advantage of the unique incentives and value ownership models that blockchain brings.

In future posts, we’ll discuss some of the important new features and how we used ZK Games (like Dark Forest) to conceptually prove their implementation.