blockchaingamer
We have been witnessing how blockchain technology has progressed the movement of video games but not only that, blockchain tech has also been evolving the systems and platforms supporting these video games. One company that is doing this in the PC gaming world is Robot Cache and they gave us an inside look as to how advantageous their blockchain method is which could eventually take the steam out of STEAM!
Q)Thank you for joining us Mr. Mark Caldwell please tell us about yourself and how you got to this point with your amazing team?
A) I’ve been making games for over 30 years. For some time, there has been the 70/30 model, where the distributer takes 30% and the publisher takes 70%. Sounds ok, but when a developer is using that publisher to promote their game, the developer is getting around 20% to make the entire game, and the distributer gets 30% just for listing it. Not fair #1. Not Fair #2 is when GameStop buys a used game for pennies, and sells it for dollars, giving nothing back to the publishers or developer and keeping the entire profits for themselves. Now with the Blockchain, we can change that and give back to the hard working developers and publishers their due.
Q) What benefits will the integration of blockchain technology with your marketplace bring to both the gamers and the developers?
A) We see unlimited applications for the blockchain and want to contribute to its growth and operation. Imagine the internet in the early days, and the new and innovative way games have taken advantage of it, we see the same possibilities in the blockchain.
Some examples that have the games industry excited include the ability to resell games from a gamer’s digital library. Never have gamers been able to re-sell their PC games from their digital library, but our blockchain technology makes it possible. And for the first time ever, developers and publishers will benefit because they will earn revenue from the re-sell. The reason we can allow the reselling of games is because we can get the unbiased truth as to who the real owner is. In general, that is the brilliance of the blockchain and it is the reason Bitcoin and the like have value. If I could sell the same bitcoin to two people, the entire economy would fail. Now take that concept to games and it allows the blockchain to track chain of ownership and allow the sale/re-license of that game to other people. Because of our blockchain technology, when you purchase a digital PC game, your purchase is unique to you. And because it is unique to you, you can resell the game from your digital library once you are done playing it. When you resell a game, it will disappear from your digital library and show up in the digital library of the person buying it from you.
Other benefits include things like ownership. On other digital platforms, games in your library do not belong to you, therefore you cannot resell them. By using the blockchain, we can allow games to continue to live on and work even if we go out of business.
Developers and publishers will benefit as well. Pricing is set by the publisher, and there is no difference in the price of a user selling the game or the publisher. All sales are “New” sales, as we are delivering the new Product to the buyer, it’s just a matter of the publisher getting 95% of a sale and 70% of a resale, while the users get 25%. There will be a number of variables that both users and publishers can play with to create greater incentives and special pricing to boost this program. We know this option will boost the economy and will be a net positive for all.
Q) What does your term “Proof of Gaming” mean and how does it relate to your great feature of mining your own in-game currency?
A) The first thing we are going to be quite clear on the site about estimated costs of electricity and the extra wear it can have on a graphics card so that users are fully informed. A very small % of the population owns cryptocurrency and an even smaller percentage mines it. Most people don’t want to bother with setting up a wallet or figuring out the arcane methods required, we thought it would be fun for an opt-in ability to simply click a box and start mining crypto. The gamers will be mining a variety of coins and being rewarded back in IRON (our in-game currency) to help grow the ecosystem of buying more games. And since mining is a burden on the system we do not mine while you are playing a game, the last thing we’d want to do is affect game performance in any way at all. We also expect to give some other rewards to miners, terms of which we are working on now.
Q) Do you think your gamers can somehow take advantage of the mining and pardon the pun “game” the system?
A) The way to “game” the system is to have more PCs in your possession mining for IRON, but there is no unethical or illegal way to “game” the system.
Q) We have seen many initial coin offerings (ICO) and Token presales for game devs as a make or break stage. Is this the same in your case with your unique platform?
A) We have concluded our initial Token generation event. We are already moving forward with the final development of the platform and consumer facing website. We are signing up publishers and developers, both big and small to make sure we have an ever-growing library of games. We are full steam ahead, please forgive the pun. In addition, we see our currency which is called IRON, to save gamers money in buying and selling games and allowing Publishers and Developers to benefit from their efforts in creating them. Our #1 goal is to change the paradigm of how digital assets, that is the focus.
Q) Are there any special tools that the game developers can look forward to using once they register on Robot Cache?
A) We are going to help the Publishers and Developers in any way we can. Currently we are planning on helping them better identify where clicks (to our site) are coming from, help them optimize Ad Spending, and a lot more…
Q) Will you be accepting indie game developers and if you do will they have more stringent requirements to sign with your platform?
A) We are going to work with the entire games industry, from the biggest publishers to the smallest indie teams. Great games can come from anywhere and anyone, so if you are making a PC game, we want to speak with you about Robot Caches’ digital PC distribution platform and its benefits.
Robot Cache will be advantageous for the indie scene. When you think of the small developers who are struggling and waiting for their next check to come, and suddenly, they can get paid the same day a sale happens. Fewer will go out of business, more will have the opportunity to improve their games, and overall the community will benefit from the developer having the opportunity to iterate over their technology and designs, which will in turn make better games.
Q) As gamers we believe what will be key in bringing us to your marketplace are the games. Can you tell or offer us any hints as to which games or publishers will be coming to your market?
A) We have a long and growing list of publishers and developers who are excited about Robot Cache and have said they want to bring their games to Robot Cache. We’d love to share with you the full list, but we can only share with you our initial list of companies that have contractually signed on to work with Robot Cache: 505 Games, Anuman Interactive SA, Entrada Interactive, Forthright Entertainment, inXile Entertainment, Maximum Games, Microids, Modus Games, Paradox Interactive, THQ Nordic and Versus Evil. We will be announcing even more publishers and developers as we head toward launching this year.
Q) What lies ahead in the short and long term for Robot Cache? Will you plan to stream into the gaming consoles market?
A) We are in the process of finishing the actual platform and are in the process of bringing on more developers and publishers to make sure we have a ton of games at launch and make sure we have an ever-growing library of games. We are focused on the PC market.
We are letting the genie out of the bottle for the resale of digital games. I absolutely believe this is a win-win for gamer, publisher, and developer. The knowledge of knowing one can resale, the social dynamics of gamers striking bargains to sell each other games and the ability to get money that never existed before will all serve to create a bigger ecosystem for games.
We would like to thank Mr.Mark Caldwell and the Robot Cache team very much for taking the time out of their busy schedules to talk with Blockchaingamer.net for this exclusive interview!
You can follow them on their:
Website: https://www.robotcache.com/
Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/AXyqT4A
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RobotCache
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobotCache
Telegram: https://t.me/RobotCache
