Alto.io's CTO Discusses How Blockchain Can Disrupt the Gaming Industry

The Blockchain Applications and Economics Forum (Blockchain Asia Forum) 2018’s day two focused on the numerous industries that could be disrupted by the shift to the blockchain. One of these industries is gaming, which lately, has headed towards free-to-play games and centralized distribution platforms.

CTO and Co-Founder of Alto.io, Mr. Paul Gadi, talks about how the gaming industry evolved, from the arcade games of the 80s, the consoles of the 90s, and the social-based games of the late 2000s. Today, the industry is dominated by freemium mobile games, a model that is not sustainable, according to Mr. Gadi. However, blockchain can change all of this.

Mr. Gadi shared that 98% of players don’t pay for their games. This is the reason why small developers run out of funds or create paywalls.

“Blockchain will change how games are played and also how people pay for their games,” – Mr. Paul Gadi

He added that the industry is very centralized because of digital distribution platforms such as the App Store, Play Store, and Steam. These platforms extract a lot of money out of the economy rather than the creators having a direct economic connection to the players.

Alto.io created an Item First Economy and Initial Item Offering (IIO) where game developers can create an item first and pre-sell to get funds. These items are playable in other games, valuable, and scarce. Players who are able to get these Items have real ownership and are able to sell or trade them.

“With the blockchain, you don’t really have to tie your items to an economy. Once you build them in the blockchain, you realize that these items can be separated from a game economy, they are now live on the blockchain. They are like bitcoin that you can buy or sell.” – Mr. Paul Gadi, CTO and Co-Founder, Alto.io