| > I'm not aware of any set of games that let you transfer items among them using a blockchain 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). |
I still think that the added benefits of using a blockchain in this particular scenario are very little and not relevant in practice (e.g. a game studio doesn't close overnight, so users would have time to transfer their items somewhere else and I think no bank would accept my Minecraft diamond sword as a collateral for a loan), but these are my personal opinions and as such are debatable.