Rainmaker Games launches first blockchain gaming discovery platform
Gamers, it's about to get much easier for you to access hundreds of blockchain games.
Newly-formed Rainmaker Games announced today that it has launched the world's first discovery platform for blockchain games, providing a single source of gaming data and making it easier to review, assess and access hundreds of play-to-earn (P2E) games -- those that are based on blockchain that reward players with cryptocurrency that, in turn, can be exchanged for money.
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"There's really no discovery engine for blockchain games," Will Deane, CEO and co-founder of Rainmaker Games, told ZDNet. "We're gamer-first. We really care about the gamer's user experience because that's who's coming on to this space; that's where the next 100 million people are going to come from in blockchain."
Deane sees Rainmaker as the Netflix of blockchain games. Just like you can use Netflix to discover and access content, Rainmaker will provide a single-site resource to discover games, complete with ratings, daily earnings, reviews and feature write-ups. What's more, social network activity from Twitch, Reddit and Twitter will also be integrated directly into the game information pages, providing context for what's going on across the larger web communities.
According to the company's announcement, the data provided by Rainmaker's Discovery Platform can also help gamers have peace of mind knowing that the games are legitimate and community-approved when listed on Rainmaker.
Rainmaker will have 150-plus games on its platform starting today and will be adding 5 to 10 games per week. Deane said its gaming guild will go through every game, play it, buy the assets, spend time in the game and release reviews. Over time, Rainmaker's platform will morph into more of a community where every gamer will have their own profile. Gamers will be able to sync games they've played to view other gamers' scores as they attempt to earn rewards.
"Gamers don't necessarily care about the token price; they care what games are fun or what games they can earn the most from, or what the cost is to buy into the game. That's our V1 launch," Deane said.
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Speaking of price, the monetization of gaming has created a sizable rift between gamers and developers in the P2E space. Gamers want to pay a low, one-time price to access and play their games, while game developers are trying to find new financing tactics to grow their profits. The result is that the games become less enjoyable to play.
Another issue frustrating gamers: accessibility to games. Deane told ZDNet that he sees a "really big hole" in the market for building quality games for the gamer and for them to access those games.
"If you're trying to buy into these games or buy some of these assets, you have to go to Binance or Coinbase, buy Ethereum and then send Ethereum to a different wallet and then swap that for a different coin and then find another decentralized exchange and swap that out for the native coin and then buy into the game…" Deane said. "The average gamer is not going to do all of that. To really bridge the gap and onboard the next 100 million players, you need to remove some of that friction; that's what we're working on in the background."
Of course, at the heart of blockchain games is the ability to make money, and Deane sees room for improvement to make it easier on the gamer. "We think that in the next three to five years, every game that gets created will have some sort of token economy. A lot of games already do have some sort of economy inside them where you can buy a shield or a sword or some power, but you can't actually cash out; you can only buy-in."
Deane explained, "The reason why blockchain gaming is so powerful is because now you can actually convert the value of those assets into tangible value that you can take with you... I would imagine that millions upon millions of people in developing and developed countries would love to be able to play or make money when they're playing games."
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As for barriers to entry, Rainmaker hopes its new platform -- which is in beta-test mode -- will help reduce the steps needed to find and access games. Some of these games are, in Deane's opinion, at the level of being AAA-rated or on the scale of Fortnight.
For the year ahead, Rainmaker aims to be the starting place for gamers to find the games and to play them. "We're working with games right now to directly integrate with them so that gamers don't even have to leave our platform to play the game," said Deane.