[zaphar]

Blockchains are not the only way of achieving what you describe. It's just one mechanism. You seem to be conflating the "result" achieved with the "mechanism".

If a game company wanted to provide the same properties without a blockchain they could do so in other ways. A more extreme example is they could provide you with an actual legal certificate of ownership and transfer all rights to the digital property in that certificate. A deed of sorts. It could include a full description of the item and the available operations on it. You could host your own API to allow interactions. You could even host it on the blockchain if you wanted.

In the case of many of these digital game assets out there you have a record of ownership but the actual asset itself is hosted by the company of origin. Which means that if they go down you have proof of ownership but no still have no recourse when the asset in practice goes poof. The more required it is for the game company to provide api's for the asset the less actual gameplay is possible. smart contracts are pretty limited and the more operations they allow the more expensive it is to actually play the game which creates a market pressure for the game to trivial as regards the gameplay on the chain itself. Because of this market pressure what happens is a boom/bust cycle for the game.

The only way out is to host more of the gameplay elements off chain which defeats the purpose.

Does the blockchain make interoperability easier? yes but so does any interoperability standard. Do the cryptographic guarantees of the ledger make it easier to prove ownership? yes but that doesn't address the issues with gameplay being both trivial and expensive because of the market forces you inserted into the game.

[stale2002]

> Blockchains are not the only way of achieving what you describe. It's just one mechanism

But you agree that there is some set of features that are only available on a Blockchain, right?

Well whatever that set of features is, that is the features that I am attempting to refer to.

So yes, if you agree that there are features that are only possible on a Blockchain, then I am correct that this set of features is only possible on a Blockchain and that is what I am talking about.

> If a game company wanted to provide the same properties

Not if I am talking about a feature that is only possible on the blockchain. So whatever featureset that you agree is only available on a blockchain that is what I am talking about.

[zaphar]

Except that I don't agree those features are only available on a Blockchain.

[stale2002]

But there are some features only available on a Blockchain right?

Do you agree that there are any features at all, ever, that are only on a Blockchain?

If so, then whatever features that you think are only available on a Blockchain is what I am talking about.

[zaphar]

You are speaking in extreme hypotheticals. I am unaware of any set of features that require a blockchain to satisfy them. Is there an as of yet unknown set of features that require a blockchain? I don't know but I'm unaware of any such set right now and your reluctance to specify such a set suggests that you don't know of them either.

[stale2002]

Really? You are going to claim that there is literally zero features that a blockchain provides, that are not solved elsewhere?

Like, you think there are equally good ways to solve the double spend problem, on a public ledger, in a decentralized manner, with no central authority, without a blockchain, and the various consensus algorithms involved in that?

[zaphar]

yes