All Is Forgiven EA, Sorta…But Not Really

All Is Forgiven EA, Sorta…But Not Really

15 minutes, 3 vs 3, champions out of 50 in battle royal and all is forgiven, sorta, but not really. That’s pretty much all it took for everyone to forget about what has happened over the course of the last few months with loot boxes, and crazy micro-transaction strategies.

“Respawn’s battle royale managed to draw in a higher peak viewer number and averaged more viewers across the month than Fortnite, as well as every other game being streamed. Over 670,000 people tuned into Apex Legends at its February peak” -GitHyp

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, where have you been? In a matter of a month or so, EA through one of their smaller developer shops, Respawn, came out of nowhere and produced a new game titled “Apex Legends”. What some might call another typical “Battle Royal” genre, 50 million users in one month call it a unique team based game. Where sticking with your team and supporting one another is pivotal and key to winning. Where a ping system helps you communicate without having to turn on your mic. A game where your team mates can get knocked down, get thirsted, and all you have to do is wait a little bit till the other team leaves the area, retrieve your mates tag before time expires, and get to a respawn (I see what they did there…) point to get them back into the game and battle your way back into winning that champion spot.

This isn’t a review

Now this isn’t a review of the game, or EA, its about games, gamers and game studios. So lets just start by asking the question that every gamer has shelved away in their heads. Will this leave a sour taste in our mouths? When will the micro-transaction trap be sprung? How long until I have to start paying to remain competitive in this game?

Lets take a look at Apex Legends current transaction/micro-transaction structure. First off it came out swinging with a free-play-model, nothing new, but something that always draws a crowd. Then we start to see several micro-transaction tier levels in the game. Currently, items that are available for purchase are character skins or weapon related skins. You can purchase 2 legend characters or play long enough to earn them. Respawn has chosen to implement 3 types of currency, crafting metals — unlocks cosmetic items, legend tokens — unlocks legend and store exclusive cosmetics, and apex coins — unlocks various store items. Stay with me, I promise you’ll see where I’m going pretty soon. If you’re familiar with the Tap Platform and games integration tool, you already know where I’m headed.

We are going to take a little bit of a detour and let our minds wonder for a minute, join me. Imagine we lived in a world where you could play Apex Legends to your hearts content, with your friends, with complete randoms, on your PC, Xbox or PlayStation. You play as much as you want, you amass as much as your heart can take…and when Respawn releases the next version of Titan Fall, you take all your crafting metal, or legend tokens or apex coins and convert them over to Titan Fall, instantly into Titan Credits!

I’m just going to go grab my coffee and let that sink in for a minute…How are you feeling, are you able to breath yet? Your heart still pounding a little? OK, good, lets continue!

What if you could do this very thing that you dreamed of, where all those hours spent grinding and honing your skills allowed you to traverse into another game. What would you say to me, what would you say to Respawn, what would you say to EA? I know, I’m asking you a lot of questions right now. But what if I told you, that the world we described above, is actually this world. The one you live in right now! That the pieces of this puzzle have been developed and are already being used in multiple games…in the real world! And what if, I told you that you can then take those points and turn them into dollars. Yes, you can actually take your skills and get paid for them. Not by a sponsor or a company, you don’t have to be in major tournaments or anything. Your grind, and the platform that allows you to get rewarded for it. OK, I’ve put away the infomercial handbook, so lets talk some details.

The future of the gaming ecosystem

The Tap Platform is the worlds most intuitive Ethereum based blockchain gaming marketplace platform. Utilizing Tap coin, which is an Ethereum based cryptocurrency, it gives players the ability to export game currency and use it in other games. Thus opening up a new path for decentralized virtual game currency where players control their winnings. It allows gamers the ability to convert their game currency into Tap coins and essentially get paid to play! Transfer your coins to the next game you play or keep your coins for more upcoming features.

“Gamers in particular understand cryptocurrency because virtual money has been a part of gaming for the last 10 years.”

So The Tap Platform Is The Solution, Then What Is The Problem?

Well, if your a gamer, the problem is that there are currently millions of in-game currencies that are restricted to individual games and eco-systems. There are problems, challenges, and limitations when it comes to payments and transfers of in-game currencies. Gamers spend hours on hours playing games and earning in-game currency, just to have them “stuck” in the virtual world when they stop playing that game.

This will never work! I think that was the same thing they said about cross platform gaming… no? Like it or not, worlds will collide, they have already started, it only makes sense to allow you to travel to them with your hard earned currency! Now you wont feel bad about missing that birthday party because you where having a once in a life time gamer session., and trust me, I know the feeling when you have to turn that PC or console off just to be social.

Great! What About The Game Developers

Great! Great! So now your probably thinking the universal question, if I’m a game developer or game studio, what’s in it for me or my shop? Let’s be honest, if your running a game studio, you doing for the love of the industry, but your doing it also because you have KRA’s (Key process areas), targets and goals that you need to achieve for monetization (gamers aren’t the only ones that want to get paid), retention, longevity, market attention, and being able to fuel a new game experience. By integrating blockchain and cryptocurrency game studios can use this technology to gain a competitive over other games on their genre, not to mention create a new type of revenue stream and create new marketing hooks.

“Due to the additional expenses associated with free-to-play games, blockchain-based games are gaining traction primarily because blockchain technology allows gamers to use cryptocurrency to trade virtual gaming items with one another. This eliminates the need for gamers to use fiat currency to purchase items directly from game developers. — Forbes

The union of gaming and blockchain is inevitable. Encrypted blockchain guarantees safe storage of all in-game digital assets. Smart contracts exclude third parties from payment processes, making transactions fast and safe. Blockchain technology is the solution we are all looking for, due to the decentralized network and capability to record each transaction to combat fraud. That actually can trigger the gaming industry’s next evolution.” — Frank Fu, Managing Director at Meitu

I’m pretty sure that there are many different ways you can incorporate tap coin into your games using the Tap SDK tool. The team has worked very hard to create a very simple, but power blockchain game integration tools for the Unity and Unreal game engines, that allow access for users on Xbox, PC, Playstation, and Mobile. This opens up the door to numerous game enhancements that we haven’t thought of it and that what makes it so great.

Trying To Do Our Part

We can only do so much by trying to create one of the freshest Dapps on the Ethereum blockchain that help ease the challenges of getting into the blockchain space for games and gamers. The rest is up to you to explore — so you can join in or just observer. Our suggestion would be to join in!

Step into a world that is more than just gaming!

— Tap Team Lead Dev