When you are planning to develop a dApp/game/… there is the moment, when you have to choose the blockchain you want to built on. More or less I’m standing at the point, where I have to decide.
In my case I have to take the decision for a blockchain game. In a short summary, the game will at the start be a browsergame with RPG characteristics. Meaning you are the hero of the story who will work on quests and exploring the game world, while experiencing the story-line. In the endgame the the focus will switch over to gathering rare items, improve your character and fight in the arena against the best of the game to earn honor and glory.
At the moment there are discussions about how the blockchain itself will be integrated in the game. The span is from a building the whole game on the blockchain to partial use the blockchain for the charactersystem and itemsystem or to only have the itemsystem on chain.
From the actual standpoint either the solution charactersystem+itemsystem or only the itemsystem will be the chosen path.
As result it is mandatory for the blockchain to support smart contracts. Also it need to be kept in mind, that transactions will happen on chain. Therefore, transaction fees are another important topic. For guaranteeing a nice user experience the fees should be as low as possible, in best case not existent, for the user as well as for us developers. From the current standpoint, the user and server will trigger several transactions while playing the game.
Examples:
- Fight won + item dropped --> transaction
- Item crafted --> transaction
- Character created --> transaction
- Item deleted --> transaction
- Item traded --> transaction
- Item upgraded --> transaction
- …
This lines out that playing the game is resulting in several transactions in each played session. Depending on the task, also the confirmation time is a relevant criteria for the user experience. No one wants to wait a bunch of time till the new dropped rare sword can be equipped.
Another important thing to look at is the tools available for the blockchain to polish up for example the login process. Ethereum would for example allow a nice login with meta mask, which is already an established tool in the community --> lowers the barrier. Meaning, a blockchain project with a wide user base have more already developed solutions to profit from.
With the mentioned points and the current research three blockchain solutions, all of them support smart contracts, seem to be worth digging deeper:
Ethereum:
- Pro:
– biggest smart contract platform
– supportive tools available (Meta Mask, Nash login/pay)
– ERC 721/ERC 1155 standard for NFTs - Con:
– latency of the blockchain
– costs of transactions (will take time till solved)
– supported programming languages
NEO:
- Pro:
– established smart contract platform
– supportive tools available (Nash login/pay)
– costs of transactions
– latency of the blockchain
– supported programming languages - Con:
– entry barrier for the smart contract costs (up to 500 GAS)
– user base compared to ethereum
– comparable token standard to ERC 1155
Phantasma:
- Pro:
– niche blockchain for gaming and NFTs
– costs of transaction
– latency of the blockchain
– supported programming languages - Con:
– lack of supportive tools
– risky in the long term (will it survive?)
– user base
This is what I’ve come up until now, due to the topic of choosing the right blockchain. The decision still have to be taken and I would be happy if anyone maybe was in a similar situation and would share his/her experience.
Additionally, if you think there is an important topic missing which should be taken into consideration, please let me know. Also, if you think there is another blockchain project worth digging into, I would be happy to hear of it.