In recent posts I have started enumerating the factions of the Bitcoin community, which is now segmenting. I overlooked an important industrial sector: “gaming”.
Akin to the flat out “pirate” sector, there has always been interest in cryptocurrencies from the legal “sin” businesses, gambling and porn. Just as in the conventional economy, these sectors parallel more main street businesses, and sometimes lead the technology.
Pete Rizzo reports in Coindesk that the adoption of cryptocurrency in “gaming” has been slow. Partly, this is because the gaming industry isn’t “broken”, and certainly does not want to be “disrupted”. (And frankly, I would never even think about “disrupting” gaming interests.)
Ironicaly, a big barrier is the necessity for regulation. Gaming is highly regulated for a constellation of reasons, and unregulated cryptocurrency seriously “disrupts” the rules of the game.
The Coindesk report discusses BreakOut Coin, which is sort of a blockchain based poker chip. This is yet another metaphor that can be applied to crypto coins (Virtual “currency”, “property deeds”, “mileage points”, and “pokemon cards” are others).
This particular effort is not successful yet, perhaps because cryptocurrency brings nothing significant to the table compared to conventional “chips”. Apparently they also had some unusual limitations on mining, which seriously reduced the incentives for some potential “investors”.
Obviously, the gaming industry will happily suck up Bitcoin and anything else people want to spend, but it remains unclear whether cryptocurrency will “disrupt” gambling or gaming.
In the mean time, these folks form an interesting segment of crypto enthusiasts. Their customers have strong interests in privacy and cash-like transfers, similar to the “pirate” segment. The industry has a deep interest in clear regulation and policing, both for safety and reputation. In this, they are aligned with the “wall street” factions. Both the customers and industry are extremely interested in conversion to non-digital assets and conventional currencies–you want to “buy in” and “cash out” of the game worlds.
Altogether, another interesting front in the culture wars inside “the crypto community”.
Robert McGrath's Blog 