Lightning Network ideal for in-game currency in MMO games?

[DooMAD]

The first "gaming" I'd envisage Lightning to become successful for is online casinos, dice games, poker, sports betting and such.  Games where winning and losing money are the primary focus would be a natural fit.  Gambling is ideally suited to payment channels, due to money changing hands frequently between the customer and the "house", as Lightning effectively reduces costs for both.  There's also an element of simplicity in gambling that makes it easier to set up. 

Due to their relative complexity (at least compared to dice games), I don't think we'll start to see MMOs get in on the action for a while yet.  But no doubt it's something that will likely happen at some point, once Lightning has matured a little and the benefits are plain for all to see.

[hatshepsut93]

I think the problems will start when bots create havoc and also farming on a large scale. The On-chain Bitcoin transactions are for the most part, irreversible, so the game developer will not have a tool to stop this, once the channel is closed.

This will quickly ruin the in-game economy or the money pool, if someone figure out a way to exploit it. We regularly see how bad the third party code is in some of the exchanges. Can you think how hackers will be drawn to large MMO games, if millions of people are using Bitcoin on their platforms? 

Hacking is not that bad in big online games because they are well-tested and critical bugs are quickly patched, but full control over any account also helps to reduce the damage when it happens, since they can just revert items. This ability to edit the database of a game is also very useful to restore accidently deleted or stolen items and currency, which can't be done with blockchain. So, hackers would be actually targeting accounts of gamers rather than game servers in order to steal something valuable. So, in general, blockchain is not suitable for typical online games, it creates more problem than it solves. I think it can only work if the whole game is built around blockchain, like CryptoKitties.

[Anti-Cen]

Sure if you like paying 0.65% per transaction fees to the banking hubs to play ping pong and we know from fees
on BTC that these fees can rise from $0.001 to $55 per transaction.

I get free home banking for fiat and other alt-coins are much cheaper to use and are "on-block" and I won't be using
Lightning any time soon.

[DooMAD]

I think the problems will start when bots create havoc and also farming on a large scale. The On-chain Bitcoin transactions are for the most part, irreversible, so the game developer will not have a tool to stop this, once the channel is closed.

This will quickly ruin the in-game economy or the money pool, if someone figure out a way to exploit it. We regularly see how bad the third party code is in some of the exchanges. Can you think how hackers will be drawn to large MMO games, if millions of people are using Bitcoin on their platforms? 

Hacking is not that bad in big online games because they are well-tested and critical bugs are quickly patched, but full control over any account also helps to reduce the damage when it happens, since they can just revert items. This ability to edit the database of a game is also very useful to restore accidently deleted or stolen items and currency, which can't be done with blockchain. So, hackers would be actually targeting accounts of gamers rather than game servers in order to steal something valuable. So, in general, blockchain is not suitable for typical online games, it creates more problem than it solves. I think it can only work if the whole game is built around blockchain, like CryptoKitties.

I'd assume bots, hackers and farmers would only be as big of an issue as they are in the existing games where a fiat marketplace has emerged for in-game items.  They're probably more of an annoyance than a showstopper.

Sure if you like paying 0.65% per transaction fees to the banking hubs to play ping pong and we know from fees
on BTC that these fees can rise from $0.001 to $55 per transaction.

I get free home banking for fiat and other alt-coins are much cheaper to use and are "on-block" and I won't be using
Lightning any time soon.

Yes, we already know you'll be using the real banking hubs like a good little Ripple shill.  You don't need to keep reminding us.  It's reassuring to know that you still feel threatened enough by Lightning to keep up this little campaign of yours.  It's been more than 10 days and I'm still waiting for an answer on how many times the word "fee" appears in the Ripple whitepaper, you worthless troll.

[Anti-Cen]

Yes, we already know you'll be using the real banking hubs like a good little Ripple shill.  You don't need to keep reminding us.  It's reassuring to know that you still feel threatened enough by Lightning to keep up this little campaign of yours.  It's been more than 10 days and I'm still waiting for an answer on how many times the word "fee" appears in the Ripple whitepaper, you worthless troll.

No mate, I just don't like seeing people ripped off by worthless paid trolls like you who spend the day spamming to make out that Bitcoin
is so fantastic and break out into a sweat when someone reminds people that Bitcoin won't scale or the rip-off $55 fees we were forced to pay.

Ripple for all I know has the word "Fees" all over it's white paper but one they are cheaper than Bitcoin and two they are not pretending to
be something they are not and three it scales.

we already know you'll be using the real banking hubs

Yeah, Ripple understands distributed (No single point of failure) but this was lost with the LN development team here but that's above your head I guess and
anyway I like EVO better than Ripple, ETH more than BTC so lets get your facts right.

Tell me DooMAD why do you keep punching with your face.

[Anti-Cen]

Hacking is not that bad in big online games because they are well-tested and critical bugs are quickly patched, but full control over any account also helps to reduce the damage when it happens, since they can just revert items.

Your missing the art and hacking is a slow process of corrupting the data so they cannot simple roll back to a previous date, well that's
what someone told me.

[DooMAD]

No mate, I just don't like seeing people ripped off

I don't like to see people getting ripped off, which is why I would never advocate a currency where those in authority can freeze your account.  Like Ripple can.  

fees we were forced to pay

That's not how fees work in Bitcoin.  You aren't "forced" to pay that much, people merely chose to.  Ripple chooses your fee for you.  That's what force looks like, cretin.

Ripple for all I know has the word "Fees" all over it's white paper but one they are cheaper than Bitcoin and two they are not pretending to
be something they are not and three it scales.

one:  Only sometimes and centralisation is still a higher cost than any network fee
two:  They're pretending to be a cryptocurrency and they aren't
three:  Because it's centralised

Yeah, Ripple understands distributed (No single point of failure) but this was lost with the LN development team here but that's above your head

Ripple = 55 banking hubs
Lightning = ~1500 independent nodes and growing

Hmm... which one is more distributed?  Apparently basic numeracy goes over your head.  

Now stop shitting up the thread, troll.  

Not as an in-game currency, that's a horrible idea even if LN became free of transaction charge.
Lightning Network can be used as a payment method to purchase in-game credits an alternative of credit cards and game cards.

The best candidate of all the cryptocurrency-related technology we have now for in-game currency is: Smart Contract - Tokens.
Potentially, it can make the in-game economy hack-proof, hyper inflation-proof and duplication-proof.
Too-much-proof but imagine if an item like a Rare Sword can be limited to 20 units represented by a token with a hard cap of 20, the same limitation can be applied in the game's currency using another token (Initial supply will be distributed among NPC traders).
The problem is trading them, it's going to be slow, so the whole game must act like an exchange when it comes to trading items and currency, nothing is traded onchain within the game, but the items can be traded outside the game if they requested to take it out (withraw).

LN however, can't be used as part of a game's economy.

That seems like a sensible assessment.  In terms of withdrawal, the thought occurs that while the player is actually playing the game itself, the amount they accumulate will depend on how long they're playing and how good they are at the game.  There's no point in pre-loading a payment channel until the game knows how much they need, so it's better to wait until the player wishes to "cash out".  It wouldn't be practical to maintain the channel in real-time.  In game credits maintained separately would indeed be the better option.

[Anti-Cen]

That's not how fees work in Bitcoin.  You aren't "forced" to pay that much, people merely chose to.  Ripple chooses your fee for you.  That's what force looks like, cretin.

oh yes dip stick I choose to donate about $120 to miners during Decembers, of my own free will to carry out four transactions and it was a good job I didn't call you
a wanker in the last post because I notice mummy is hanging around and just deleted another post of mine and andy is bound not to notice the "Cretin" insult and others you
make so run along, mothers skirt is that way >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Lightning = ~1500 independent nodes and growing

1500 single points of failure to anyone with just one channel open to one of these banking hubs, too many bangs on the head me thinks.

[Kprawn]

#Anti-Cen please stop attacking people in my thread and stay on topic please, because that is one reason why your posts

might be disappearing. 

Now back to the topic at hand. I personally think the Bot problem might be reduced if withdrawals were capped and managed.

As soon as a bot or a farmer are identified, trade restrictions could be implemented to reduce their influence in the game.  

You will then have to detect account farmers and ban multiple accounts.  

[etherixdevs]

I do not think it is a good idea to use LN  as part of a game's economy.

[Paashaas]

Do you think the Lightning Network is fast and cheap enough to be used as a in-game currency within some of these MMO games?

I can see this happen when LN scales into the millions.

[jahn_quid]

+1 for wondering whether publishers would want to use a crypto system. Maybe if the same in-game money is used across multiple titles?

[vit05]

As others have said, I believe that many developers will prefer the option of having their own tokens or using other protocols more specific and worked for these situations.

To understand why to use other tokens, just remember the tokens of a casino. They could use cash in casinos. But for a number of reasons, including some related to the psychological, it is better to have own tokens.

Now, the transaction medium between fiat and tokens will definitely be using LN. It is unlikely that the most practical way to acquire game tokens will be with current methods. Bitcoin could be much more easily responsible for this type of integration. And we will still have the huge market of people that neither fiat will have more.

[Kprawn]

As others have said, I believe that many developers will prefer the option of having their own tokens or using other protocols more specific and worked for these situations.

To understand why to use other tokens, just remember the tokens of a casino. They could use cash in casinos. But for a number of reasons, including some related to the psychological, it is better to have own tokens.

Now, the transaction medium between fiat and tokens will definitely be using LN. It is unlikely that the most practical way to acquire game tokens will be with current methods. Bitcoin could be much more easily responsible for this type of integration. And we will still have the huge market of people that neither fiat will have more.

Well, we have determined that the Lightning Network will be a good solution to buy those tokens then. I think it might even

be more advantageous because credit card transactions can be reversed. The transactions will also be almost instantaneous

and that would make it a good payment options for these in-game tokens. The obvious next question would be, what Alt

coin might be more suitable for in-game currencies, if Bitcoin with the LN is not?