The Big Interview - Ionomy.jpg
Blockchain is helping to really bring gamers, developers and crypto-enthusiasts closer together. And it’s only a net positive for both sides of the industry-based coin as friction is reduced.
For gamers, it means a far more secure, trustworthy ecosystem which rewards activity and contributions from the community. Likewise, for crypto-enthusiasts, they are able to obtain a greater amount of utility from the tokens and assets they obtain from games on the platform.
And finally for developers, it helps them to understand what gamers want, with all the tools and support from the community to make it happen.
One of the more prominent examples we’ve seen has been from ionomy. We had the opportunity to find out more about how it functions and intends to bring together these demographics.
What is ionomy and how does it work with ION cryptocurrency?
ION is is the cryptocurrency at the heart of the ION economy. ionomy is a company that uses the power of cryptocurrency to bring together communities of gamers, game developers, and crypto enthusiasts.
We have spent the last two and a half years building the infrastructure for an ecosystem where people who make games and people who play games, can come together with people who just like crypto, to participate in an economy of fun.
ionomy has designed a set of tools and services that make it super easy for game developers to use cryptocurrency to incentivize gameplay. The simplest example is that gamers can compete to win cash prizes paid out in ION cryptocurrency.
We’ve turned playing games and winning tournaments into the easiest on-ramp to crypto. Gamers don’t need to know anything about Bitcoin or blockchain technology to play games and start winning, owning and using cryptocurrency.
As gamers discover crypto they will also discover all the financial services the ionomy platform has to offer. We’ve built out a remarkably full-featured website, complete with a crypto exchange, online wallets, masternode hosting, and game management services.
Discovery of ionomy works the other way around, too. Just as gamers discover the financial side of ionomy, crypto enthusiasts — initially attracted to the rich financial services — discover ionomy’s larger business model and get interested in the game development side.
There’s some overlap and synergy among crypto enthusiasts and gamers. And even more overlap between gamers and game devs. What emerges is a community of incentivized gamers, motivated game developers, and cryptocurrency business people who all share a common interest in what we call “The Business of Fun.”
How do Lightning Tournaments work in mobile games?
To be successful, any game has to be fun. In reality, though, being fun isn’t enough to ensure success. For starters, gamers have to discover your game. That’s not easy when there are already so many titles at the App Store and on Google Play. So how do you make your game stand out?
And once gamers start playing, they have to find the game rewarding enough to want to keep playing. So how do you make it rewarding and engaging enough to keep gamers playing and get them talking to friends about it?
ionomy makes it simple. We built the Lightning Tournament API so that a game developer needs only to plug the API into their game. Once the game is Lightning-enabled, all a gamer needs to do is sign into their ionomy account and compete for cash prizes.
Our partners at Rekall Games decided to add Lightning tournaments to their bestselling title, Rumble Arena.
When they release the multiplayer version of their Melee-Style fighting game, gamers will be able to win crypto.
The guys at Rekall love the simplicity of the integration and the depth it adds to the gameplay. Lightning lets game developers keep their focus on doing what they love and doing what they do best: designing great games.
We take care of the blockchain tech in the background.
They get all the benefits without having to become blockchain developers. Everybody wins. That’s how we play.
Besides the Lightning API for Tournaments, what are the other services ionomy offers game developers?
Right, so, “Power Grid” is our name for the whole suite of tools and services that ionomy made for game developers. Lightning is just the first element. Each service of the PWR GRD is designed to solve a particular problem that game devs face all the time.
Thunder, the next element we’ll be rolling out, introduces custom-built gaming tokens on the ION blockchain.
Tokens are the feature that got the most buzz when we presented at GDC 2018, the largest game dev conference in the world. With Thunder, game developers can easily make their own in-game tokens on the blockchain.
Game developers are excited about tokens for a lot of reasons. A lot of games already have an in-game economy. Gamers can earn rewards and spend in-game currency.
When you turn that game currency into a token on the blockchain, you give it a second life. Gamers can even take digital assets out of the game and trade them on ionomy’s Exchange.
Game studios with multiple titles can use PWR-GRD to retain customer loyalty by accepting their own in-game currency for subscriptions or purchase of other games they designed.
Gamers love it, too, because it creates new possibilities. The in-game experience is intensified when real assets are at stake. PWR-GRD solves a problem for gamers, too, because they spend a lot on games, but they don’t necessarily want to play the same ones forever.
Real Money Trading gives them new options to explore new games. Free market economies produce efficiencies that simply haven’t existed in games until now. We’re bringing games into the real world. It’s exciting. It raises the stakes for gameplay. We’re literally changing the way games are made and played.
Other elements of the PWR GRD under developmental include Jumpstart, Spark, and Swarm.
Jumpstart is a crowdfunding system for new games.
Spark is a powerful in-game advertising network.
And Swarm facilitates low-latency multiplayer gaming.
What games do you currently have in development?
This summer ionomy Studios released our first truck racing game, Offroad Heat. Gamers can race each other to compete for weekly prizes — paid out in ION.
Top competitors can earn hundreds of dollars a week. The team is full of racing fans, so we’ve partnered with NASCAR and World of Outlaws for exciting sponsorships.
Earlier this year we released The Moon or Bust. The first lunar lander won a huge cash prize, and weekly competitions for prizes are ongoing.
ionomy Studios is currently working on a word game, a mining game, and a drag racing game.
Beyond ionomy Studios, we’re excited about working with independent game developers and studios.
Rekall Games’ Rumble Arena will be the hit Multiplayer Melee Game of 2019.
How does the platform work for game management?
Once a gamer signs in on mobile devices, their high scores show up on the ionomy leaderboard. Cryptocurrency prizes are paid directly to their account. Anybody who buys
in-game assets with ION gets a 50% discount. Any asset a gamer buys on one device syncs automatically through their account to any device they’re playing on.
Are there any upcoming announcements coming out of ionomy?
We’ll be announcing an auction for Dark Matter, with trading symbol XDM. It will be the first token on the ION blockchain. Dark Matter is a revolutionary store of value currency designed to preserve wealth for the long term. It’s a perfect blend of strategic gamification and serious financial utility, so it’s sort of a good emblem for ionomy.
Dark Matter achieves its utility through a brilliant hyperdeflationary policy. Only a tiny amount of Dark Matter ever exists in the first place: 71,000 XDM.
Unlike most fiat currencies that print more and more money, diluting the value of each unit, the Dark Matter network burns most of the transaction fees, so the asset becomes increasingly scarce over time.
What’s even more fun is that any time a game developer wants to create a new token, they have to spend a little XDM to generate the new token. ionomy Studios already has plans to create tokens for some of their games. And ionomy will be converting existing platform assets, like ATOMs, into tokens.
Will there be other ways to get Dark Matter besides the XDM auction?
Yes! Dark Matter tokens will be airdropped to ION, ATOMs, and a number of other cryptocurrencies voted by the community. Create a free account on ionomy.com to register for announcements.
Blockchain Gamer Connects — London Registration 2019 — PGConnects — London
Continue the discussion in our Telegram group and don’t forget to follow BlockchainGamer.biz on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
