Ethereum blockchain explorer EnjinX now offers a blockchain-based “multiverse” on its platform consisting of 35 games and apps, the company announced last week. It calls the network of worlds a “real Ready Player One.”
Players will be able to move from each game to the next while retaining blockchain-backed inventories and tokens previously earned. The publicly accessible blockchain allows any developer to connect their game to the multiverse, with no need for permission from the other games’ creators. The feature is known as “interoperability” and it may mean blockchain makes a unique contribution to gaming.
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In the fictional Ready Player One, the citizens of a desolate future escape their reality by entering a multiverse of interconnected virtual reality games. The book and adapted movie present a struggle between the individual players and the crushing force of corporate greed behind the game.
Sony announced a game last year—Plague Hunters—which will allow players to trade collectable characters via a blockchain.
EnjinX insists it won’t be like those bad guys: the technology underpinning the multiverse ensures that the data of the multiverse is distributed among the nodes of the blockchain rather than controlled by the company.
Blockchain-based gaming has been gathering momentum in the last year. Sony announced a game last year—Plague Hunters—which will allow players to trade collectable characters via a blockchain. One of the earliest examples was CryptoKitties, a browser game involving the breeding and trading of virtual cats, was launched at the end of 2017.