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I'm not aware of any set of games that let you transfer items among them using a blockchain either, but this doesn't matter. Here's how it could work. First of all, before being able to transfer items there's some preparatory work that needs to be done, regardless of whether you're going to use a blockchain or not. You need the various game designers to agree on a common format to encode those items, so that the different games will be able to parse the data when trying to import a new item. Ideally, you would like everyone to agree on a single format, but even having just a few groups of developers to agree on one fixed format wouldn't be easy. After that, you have to solve two game design issues: which items makes sense to transfer from a particular game to a particular other game and how to map the different attributes between the two games in a meaningful way. As an example of the first problem, imagine what would happen if you were allowed to tranfer automatic rifles from Call of Duty to a RPG game where you are supposed to fight using a sword and a shield: you would ruin the latter game. As an example of the second issue, I never plaied World of Warcraft, but I think that WoW swords have very different attributes from Minecraft swords, even if on a superficial level we're talking about the same item, i.e. a sword. Note that this preparatory work is the hardest part to do, because it isn't a mere technical problem but involves many other aspects. And you need this regardless of the actual technology that you're going to use to transfer the items. After we solved the above problems we get to the transfer part. Sure, you could use a blockchain, but do you really need it? Here's an alternative way:
when the user decides to transfer an item from game A to game B, game A's server sends a message to game B's server saying: "User X wants to transfer item Y, here's a description of item Y in the format we agreed upon. Do you accept the transfer?". Assuming that we solved the initial problems, implementing such a protocol is easy enough that most BSc students could do it as part of a software engineering course. A possible question could be how the two games would know that they are talking about the same user. There are different possible solutions to this, an easy one could be to use OAuth to authenticate the user. In the end, the proposal of using blockchains to transfer game items is little more than using a blockchain as a database. |
Illuvium already released a suite of separate games with interoperable assets verifiable on a public blockchain; granted, they are all made by the same parent studio. But it demonstrates the principle.
> Ideally, you would like everyone to agree on a single format
The in-game representation could afford some creative licence by each studio. Having said that, there are efforts to define common standards for 3D assets specifically (even sprite animations for avatars); hard to say how realistic it is.
> if you were allowed to tranfer automatic rifles from Call of Duty to a RPG game where you are supposed to fight using a sword
Nobody expects that all types of assets would be universally transferable between every game imaginable. Simply verifying on the blockchain some proxy for experience points between Call of Duty and Apex Legends, in order to skip some of the initial grind, would be desirable and meaningful.
> you could use a blockchain, but do you really need it?
Blockchains have additional upsides: data persistence, decoupled from the longevity of any individual studio; resistance to censorship (a game could ban an asset, but it wouldn’t be deleted from other games); immediate compatibility with a broader financial system (e.g automatic lending protocols that enable you to get a currency loan against your NFT, without requiring permission from the game).