A report from CCN (a cryptocurrency news website) says that Decentraland is setting up a five-million-dollar fund to support blockchain-based gaming projects:
Decentraland, a decentralized user-owned virtual world on the Ethereum blockchain, plans to invest $5 million to fund blockchain gaming projects built on the Decentraland platform. To this end, it created the Genesis Content Program, through which gaming developers can submit proposals for “blockchain games” and “interactive experiences” that can be built on Decentraland.
More information is available from this Medium post by Decentraland:
We’ve been thinking hard about blockchain games in Decentraland, and have identified several key characteristics that we think will have a big impact on how these games are built:
- Small parcel footprints — Given the fact that LAND is scarce and that developers can only host their games on the LAND they control, the “play space” that each game may take up is limited. This means that as a developer, you will have to design your game to fit within the parcel boundaries of your LAND. Decentraland does provide the opportunity to build decentralized item or collectible based games, like trading card games, that can be accessed “remotely” from anywhere in Genesis City. However, even these games still require at least one LAND parcel to host and run the game.
- Distributed ownership — Unlike traditional MMO games or VR platforms that are created and controlled by a single company, Decentraland is a shared, open source hub for user generated content. Because we want to encourage diversity in the games that are built for Decentraland, LAND developers (as in real life) must respect the property boundaries of others. However, Decentraland makes it possible to build distributed games that are hosted across multiple parcels.
- Limited graphics — We are building Decentraland with a “web-first” approach, following Google’s lead in incentivizing a low-poly aesthetic. This will optimize the quality of the experience for as many users as possible without favoring any single device or binding Decentraland to any particular app store.
All funded projects must be built on Decentraland’s parcels of virtual land (called LAND), which can be purchased using the platform’s cryptocurrency MANA. This could, in theory, get quite expensive, as the minimum price for each 10m-by-10m parcel of LAND is currently 6,000 MANA each (which works out to US$443.48). I still think that Decentraland’s LAND is outrageously expensive, and that cost is going to severely constrain any game-building that takes place on that platform.
However, I am glad to see Decentraland putting its money where its mouth is, and finding ways to attract developers to its platform. I wish them every success.
