When talking about Decentralized Applications [dApps] it is mandatory to include the ancestor of all cryptocurrencies and Blockchain — Bitcoin. It is widely known but still good to mention that Blockchain is a globally distributed ledger that records transactions and is cryptographically secured. The world’s two biggest Blockchain platforms are Bitcoin and Ethereum to this day.

So, what is the criteria for a project to be considered a dApp?

– Open Source code

– Decentralized cryptographic technology

– Algorithm for generating tokens with a consensus mechanism

In the spirit of dApps popularity rising, we are studying three extremely popular dApps — PlayDapp, Xaya and Decentraland to understand what is their purpose in the decentralized world. We should mention that we have spent a lot of time ourselves lost in their world and we liked it!

1. What does a platform to accommodate Blockchain games needs?

Shortlisting some of the core and most basic problems and benefits that a good dApp platform must have in order to succeed. Each of these assets have been seen as things that can drive away mainstream gamers from adopting Blockchain to their gaming experience.

Speed

Lagging is quite annoying to players and users of technology in general. Everyone wants their dApp to have pristine graphics and state of the art speed and gaming experience. Speed matters because it’s one of the top criteria for a good gaming experience, alongside good graphics and controls. On the Blockchain speed is a challenge and it must be addressed by dApp platforms.

Good User experience (UX)

Good user experience is one of the most significant red flags when it comes to dApps. Usually onboarding gamers into dApp games is tricky for platforms. In most cases players are required to download the Metamask Chrome extension wallet on ETH based dApps, generate an address, make an account in an exchange, buy crypto and send it to their wallet and then back up the wallet. Improving user experience is a must-have to dApp platforms and one of the key factors leading to new players and customers.

A good budget for the rising costs

Costs on Blockchains can be pricey since each transaction costs several dollars sometimes. Even the simplest Blockchain game might be a source of quite hefty costs to a budget. This can be fixed by using blockchain with low transaction fees such as EOS, for example.

Good scalability

Sometimes a lot of transactions cause a massive load on-chain and the Blockchain cannot coop with them.

2. What are the benefits for developers to join the platforms?

As we mentioned before, we chose three dApp platforms: Xaya, PlayDapp and Decentraland, and studied them from developers’ point of view.

Xaya

Xaya is a premium space for entire video game universes with thriving economies. Xaya’s economy is fueled by CHI coins which can be used for buying and trading games, items and accounts. Xaya’s vision for video games is one that will fundamentally change how people perceive video games and how they play them.

As the CTO of Xaya Daniel Kraft states on the account of the project on the Blockchain Game Summit:

“The Xaya project mission is to build true Blockchain gaming by which we mean that all aspects of a game on a Blockchain could or should be decentralized”

Xaya’s games are serverless 24/7 and completely fair and trustless with an open source code for everyone to build and update on. Xaya‘s games are extremely profitable with human mining and they are economic power houses with free trading. Human mining is a completely new feature introduced at Huntercoin for the first time. Such mining provides awards for players’ success in online competitions. This feature expands player loyalty to the platform.

The games of Xaya (Taurion, Soccer Manager Elite,Treat Fighter, Xayaships and XID) hold up several game genres and the community is innovation driven — unlike anything dApp platforms have seen so far.

Xaya’s SDK toolkit and developer hub make it easier for gamers to develop games entirely on the Blockchain.

Xaya is one of the platforms that introduces leading Blockchain technologies and monetizes gaming loyalty for a decentralized gaming of the future.

Decentraland

Decentraland is a virtual world for exploring, building, executing amazing 3D creations and most of it socialize amongst the community.

For Decentraland its user benefits are still a benefit for the developers, as well. They are listed like:

Marketplace

This feature allows players to buy, sell and browse the non-fungible digital assets. This is important to the native economy of the system and it is an ever-improving part of the system which can be beneficial for developers in terms of the funding of the platform.

Builder

This feature allows players to design and create how their land looks and feels. It is the main idea that the system is focused around and by default, it is the core feature around which players and developers can expand the system through.

Agora

This feature is not really developer- related but it can serve as a good stop for getting feedback from users of what games they want and what they need as updates on the platform. This can happen through pools.

Decentraland has a great opportunity for all creatives in their community. The Decentraland Creator Contest is directed to designing and building cool interactive scenes. The prizes total to up to $50k USD in value. The contest starts on the 2nd of December and ends on the 15th of December. Even if players can not code, the drag and drop content creator with pre-loaded smart items are there for users to unleash their creativity onto.

Decentraland is the future of virtual reality and as such it appeals to developers who want to deploy and build on this futuristic piece of land.

PlayDapp

PlayDapp is striving to bring mainstream gamers to the dApp industry with the PlayDapp service platform. PlayDapp is bringing PG solutions to its games like CryptoDozer, DozerBird and Dozer Treasures without the use of cryptocurrencies.

They have an in-system token “PLA” that is used for transactions between the players.

Benefits for operators and developers on PlayDapp include that they earn PLA for each in-game purchase after a deduction of a nominal fee by the PlayDapp platform.

Dapps platforms rely on developers to make them better and expand their network. The core responsibility that dApp platforms have is to bring in “traditional” gamers to the Blockchain and introduce this cutting-edge technology. Supporting dApps is crucial for the Blockchain to succeed within iGaming and options for exploring are endless.