[Request] A Lightning Network Plugin to monetize old games

[Kakmakr]

I know when I was much younger, I always dreamt of a future where I could just play video games for a living. I wanted to be one of the pro gamers, but I was simply not good enough. The other dream was to play games and to get paid for the games that I won.

I think there are a lot of people who would like to be rewarded for the games that they win. <Playing 1 vs 1 against other players or even larger games where the bounty is distributed in the group> 

It will really be great if we can monetize these old games and even the new games by developing a Lightning Network plugin for these games that enables micro payments within these games.

Can this be done or are we dealing with proprietary code and copyright infringement issues?

[realpseudozach]

I think copyright concerns are valid but what I do is just clone open source games and slap LN on them.
This one actually turned out to be very popular: https://kriptode.com/lnhunt/index.html

[hugeblack]

Do you mean the possibility of opening new levels or developing components of the game using the network of lightning or pay for those who play these games online?
In general, I remember that one of the games did an addition to SuperMario by buying some of the updates using LN, some additions were for car games.
You can try this game^{[1] [2]} if you have an eclair wallet.


[1] Prototype of videogame with Lightning microtransactions below 1 cent
[2] https://epiphanygame.github.io/prototype/

[hatshepsut93]

There were altcoins who wanted to make just what you are describing - allowing players to wager against their opponents when they play games like CS or DOTA, but since I've never heard about them outside of crypto space, I guess they didn't get any traction.

Now, technically, to make this service as decentralized as possible the game should require some way for third parties to verify the outcomes, for example observer mode from games like Dota2 or LoL. Then a third-party server would simply distribute the rewards accordingly. But this is as centralized as the current crypto casinos - making a truly decentralized solution like dapps is impossible with existing games, you'd need a game created specifically for that purpose.

But I think developers of the games wouldn't be very happy if someone tried to turn their games into gambling devices, Valve eventually made a move against CS casinos, so the same would happen with this LN betting - devs would massively ban anyone they catch gambling.

[Kakmakr]

Do you mean the possibility of opening new levels or developing components of the game using the network of lightning or pay for those who play these games online?
In general, I remember that one of the games did an addition to SuperMario by buying some of the updates using LN, some additions were for car games.
You can try this game^{[1] [2]} if you have an eclair wallet.


[1] Prototype of videogame with Lightning microtransactions below 1 cent
[2] https://epiphanygame.github.io/prototype/

I was more thinking about a plugin that would enable people to fire up any old game via emulators and then having a website or client that would provide a service to link people together to play these games and then to reward them for their win or to reward the winner in a 1vs1 game.

There are some classic games out there that would draw in a lot of people that enjoyed those old games and would love it if it was monetized now. We will have to do this via the Lightning Network, because payments might be as little as a few Satoshi and this will not be possible with the fees that needs to be paid, if this was done on-chain. 

[shield132]

When I was young, I had crazy dreams too but to be fair you dream something that's not even benefitial. Don't take it wrong, I have nothing against people who play video games and want to be professional gamer but that's not beneficial in overall, it's a work that can give you pleasure but can't give any benefit to society or other 3rd party person. So that's the reason to my mind why the things that you stated aren't so developed and still there isn't much wish, work and afford in it.
By the way it's quite possible to achieve what you wish, there is just a need of required people to work on it (of course copyrights must be protected, otherwise it's not even possible).

[DarkDays]

Well, there's actually similar, but rather than paying for people to play games, you can reward people for tweeting using https://tippin.me/

I doubt it would be too much of a stretch to augment this platform to work with streaming services like Twitch.

Though if you really wanted to monetize old games, you could easily set up your own lightning channel to receive payments.

[realpseudozach]

I think you mean satoshis.games

[lightningmelo]

I think you mean satoshis.games

Agreed, satoshis.games sounds similar to what you need.

There's also lngames.net which doesn't feature old games, but has some instant classics (Flappy bird, for example)