Game tradeables are a great case for block chain, even of it’s just some in-house one. No creating of new tradable items except by some offline key. Otherwise, the store only deals in pre-printed items. Plus, there’s a history for everything.
Unless you specifically don’t trust Blizzard not to intentionally create items on their servers, that shouldn’t be be necessary. Blockchain is just a costly way to be able to do transactions in a distributed environment. But you don’t need distributed operation. You just need correct transaction code.
I mean, if Blizzard has broken code for transactions in a centralized environment, it’s not as if they’re more-likely to have correct code in a distributed environment. If anything, the other way around, as distributed systems are harder to make correct.
Blockchain is a means of tracking information, typically virtual balances, usually with full history - but it varies in its level of decentralization.
While one of the big uses of blockchain is distributed trustless consensus, that is by far not the only use. It’s also great for inventory tracking - virtual or otherwise. Decentralization is just a kind-of bonus for redundancy, in such a case.
Systems already exist for blockchains - fast ones, too. They can use existing open-source code.
What benefit it provides is that only official Blizzard tokens are on the chain - each one signed (in batches, of course) offline by Blizzard in an official ‘printing’.
Someone discovers an exploit that gives them more tokens? The answer is ‘from where, and who signed them?’
Now, this doesn’t prevent someone who has a hacked system from getting screwed and losing all their items. But it does prevent magic item gain just because you fiddled with the interface in a certain way, and a counter went up.
It also means that, if you did somehow find a way to steal, the history of that is there, and the transactioms can be reversed.
Game tradeables are a great case for block chain, even of it’s just some in-house one. No creating of new tradable items except by some offline key. Otherwise, the store only deals in pre-printed items. Plus, there’s a history for everything.
Unless you specifically don’t trust Blizzard not to intentionally create items on their servers, that shouldn’t be be necessary. Blockchain is just a costly way to be able to do transactions in a distributed environment. But you don’t need distributed operation. You just need correct transaction code.
I mean, if Blizzard has broken code for transactions in a centralized environment, it’s not as if they’re more-likely to have correct code in a distributed environment. If anything, the other way around, as distributed systems are harder to make correct.
Blockchain is a means of tracking information, typically virtual balances, usually with full history - but it varies in its level of decentralization.
While one of the big uses of blockchain is distributed trustless consensus, that is by far not the only use. It’s also great for inventory tracking - virtual or otherwise. Decentralization is just a kind-of bonus for redundancy, in such a case.
Systems already exist for blockchains - fast ones, too. They can use existing open-source code.
What benefit it provides is that only official Blizzard tokens are on the chain - each one signed (in batches, of course) offline by Blizzard in an official ‘printing’.
Someone discovers an exploit that gives them more tokens? The answer is ‘from where, and who signed them?’
Now, this doesn’t prevent someone who has a hacked system from getting screwed and losing all their items. But it does prevent magic item gain just because you fiddled with the interface in a certain way, and a counter went up.
It also means that, if you did somehow find a way to steal, the history of that is there, and the transactioms can be reversed.