With revenues in excess of $19 billion in 2018 alone, Japan is one of the three highly competitive gaming markets in the world today. And when it comes to the blockchain gaming market, Japan is a world leader.
My Crypto Heros was launched in the last quarter of 2018, it has since gone ahead and become one of the biggest blockchain game with over 17,000 users and growing. The local community of developers, game companies and studios have been left to catch up.
To find out why Japan is already leading in a race that hasn’t started, one needs to take a closer look, and Tokyo is the perfect start. This piece explores some of the secrets different gaming companies are using to accelerate growing Japan’s blockchain gaming.
Spotting The Opportunities
According to Tran Ngoc, CEO of Tomochain Japan, liquidity and ownership of digital assets/items, being the main problem in the gaming space, provides an opportunity for blockchain as a solution. Blockchain gaming steps in and solves problems by enabling inter-operable profiles of virtual game items and players. Crypto also enables in-game economic mechanisms and allows players to own in-game assets and exercise greater control of their games.
In addition to these benefits, the players can share their ideas on improving games with the game developers while on the blockchain.
The Animoca Brand Director of strategic companies, Gen Kanai, spoke highly of Japan’s dominance and quick blockchain adoption. Kanai couldn’t hide his excitement over the coming blockchain games. He asserted that the enthusiasm over Sandbox, one of his company’s project didn’t go unnoticed and was much appreciated. He ended by saying that he was looking forward to an expanded blockchain gaming community.
Overcoming Gaming Challenges
When it came to overcoming development challenges, My Crypto Hero’s Shunsuke Watanabe was the first on the list. He disclosed challenges he and his team had to overcome in the game’s development, and scalability was definitely a constant headache alongside UX difficulties, transaction times among other problems.
According to Shunsuke, if blockchain games would get to the level of the current mobile/ browser game and in the conservation of the positive aspects of blockchain, then users wouldn’t find it difficult adopting these games.
On how his team manages to solve the Ethereum related UX challenges, Shunsuke revealed that the battle system runs on side chain in order to avoid gas fees, long transaction times and provide for smooth game flow. On the other hand, for a speeded up data transmission and a smoother experience, the team built an Ethereum proxy API.
These two factors have been significant in improving game experience in comparison to the normal games while maintaining the blockchain aspect.
Facilitating A Dapps Ecosystem
Nana Tanaka’s Pundi X labs is a benchmark when it comes to Dapps facilitation. Tanaka credits XPOS in solving the problem. XPOS function is to simply facilitate payment and purchase of Ethereum. This solved problem encourages more people to start using Dapps and crypto as a result.
Taisuke Hiritsungi spoke of how Kyber solves in-game transaction issues and the on-chain protocol that offers liquidity to Dapps. This enables multiple transactions and thus a simple hassle-free experience to gamers.
These are just some of the working solutions in Japan. Hopefully, the blockchain gaming industry can come together and share working solutions to accelerate the growth of blockchain gaming industry.