Cryptocurrency
These Gaming Studios Are Bringing Bitcoin Payouts to Everyday Esport Gamers
These Gaming Studios Are Bringing Bitcoin Payouts to Everyday Esport Gamers: (CoinDesk) Gaming developers have begun integrating Bitcoin’s Lightning Network into their own games and existing titles to provide players with bitcoin payouts. The Lightning Network is a payment protocol that facilitates fast, near-feeless transactions on a network that operates with different rules than Bitcoin’s primary network. […]
These Gaming Studios Are Bringing Bitcoin Payouts to Everyday Esport Gamers:
(CoinDesk)
- Gaming developers have begun integrating Bitcoin’s Lightning Network into their own games and existing titles to provide players with bitcoin payouts.
- The Lightning Network is a payment protocol that facilitates fast, near-feeless transactions on a network that operates with different rules than Bitcoin’s primary network.
- This in-game rewards economy offers everyday gamers a “stake” in the game and an opportunity to monetize their hobby, a privilege typically enjoyed only by the Goliaths of the professional esports industry.
The end of the match was nothing special. From the outside, it looked like any other Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) esport match, until the final results rolled in.
After the winners were announced, a QR code popped up in the corner of the screen with the message: “You have won 8,673 sats!” (sats being short for “satoshi,” a microunit of bitcoin).
This sats reward corresponded with the player’s match points, the in-game scoring system that traditionally only exists as a means to gain experience points to “level up” in the game. Except these points weren’t just in-game currency, they were actual money that could be withdrawn from the game.
A play-for-pay plugin from gaming studio ZEBEDEE called Infuse makes this possible. It uses Bitcoin’s Lightning Network to facilitate instant, near-feeless payouts to players. Previously in closed-beta, ZEBEDEE’s CS:GO servers are now open to the public.
The release brings Lightning Network compatibility to a mainstream game title for the first time, and it’s something of a milestone for a fledgling industry that uses Lightning-powered games to reimagine how players interact with (and monetize) their favorite pastime.
Read more: What Is Bitcoin’s Lightning Network?
Lightning Network gaming
ZEBEDEE is just one of a handful of pioneers in the growing (but still rather niche) intersectional industry of bitcoin and video games. They’re approaching Lightning-integrated gaming a bit differently, though. Instead of building a Lightning game from scratch, they’re bringing the Lightning Network to a game with 28 million monthly active players.