Getting back to video game reviews, but focusing on some blockchain games

In the past, I have done a lot of video game reviews for websites such as Vox Ex Machina, where I work as the assistant editor, and GameOgre.com, where I was a game correspondent. My primary focus has always been massively multiplayer online games, but now I'm thinking of looking at how blockchain gaming is affecting the industry.

For a simple explanation, blockchain technology uses cryptography and distributed ledgers to create an immutable record of transactions by building up a "chain" of transactions where each new link in the chain depends on the status of the last link. This means that anytime a previous link is changed, the links after must also be changed, this makes blockchains tamper-evident.

Blockchains are useful for gaming because they allow for the creation of currency tokens that can be actually owned by players -- the person with the cryptographic keys to a set of tokens is in control.

Originally, these tokens acted a lot like premium currency in games, such as gems or similar used for in-game microtransactions. However, with protocols such as ERC-20 in Ethereum, it is possible for tokens to represent individual virtual objects as well.

This way, it is possible for an in-game item such as a weapon, a piece of armor, a space ship, a chair, a house, or even a plot of land -- this list can go on -- to be represented on the blockchain as an entity that can be provably owned and traded between players.

This fact has not been lost on the gaming industry at large and I would love to provide a better analysis of how it is being embraced and adopted.

More thoughts and analysis coming.