Constructing absolutely onchain video games for the final three years, UK studio Playmint has an inherent drive to consistently evolve the sector technologically. And this has been underlined in its newest endeavour – Area Shooter, which it describes because the“quickest absolutely decentralised sport on this planet” and which is powered by the developer’s personal playerchains expertise.
Playmint’s motivation behind playerchains and Area Shooter was born after the discharge of its autonomous world UGC platform Downstream on Ethereum L2 Redstone in 2024.
Realising its limitations, Playmint CEO David Amor has commented, “In truth, the compromises of operating a sport on a blockchain are important: computation is pricey; transaction instances are sluggish; hidden info and sport replace loops are troublesome.”
Amor factors out that one explicit downside is the decentralization tech used for video games to date has “been inherited from DeFi and the attributes of Ethereum or its L2s”. These are usually not the optimum instruments for many video games. In consequence, Playmint has shifted its focus to enhancing decentralised expertise to be able to make onchain video games higher.
So what’s the answer? In response to the developer, it’s known as playerchains, a “form of expertise that’s extra decentralised however much less crypto”: primarily it’s not run on public blockchains.
Tackling one of many core points absolutely onchain video games have wrestled with, Playmint CTO Iain Gilfeather mentioned playerchains allow “decentralised video games which can be for enjoying, not speculating.” Resulting from public and permissionless blockchains’ inherent monetary techniques, video games deployed on these chains are additionally going to be related to cash. This relationship makes their gamers liable to monetary hypothesis. In distinction, Gilfeather defined that “Video games on a permissioned chain, the place no cash exists within the first place, retain play because the dominant exercise.”
Due to its game-first design, playerchains additionally remedy a sequence of different sensible points corresponding to “real-time multiplayer, acquainted tick-based sport improvement, and gasless transactions.”
For a extra in-depth rationalization, go to Gilfeather’s substack posts “Why we want Playerchains” and “Playerchain Structure”.