How Smart Contracts are Reinventing the Gaming Experience

With technological advances making everything smarter, seeing a ‘smart’ prefix has become all too common for us. From smartwatches to smart TVs, it seems the world can’t get enough of smartness. But many activities have been carried out in the old-world style. Take an agreement, for instance.

You have to go through the agreement pages and read the terms and conditions to ensure that they are applied correctly. But that’s not necessary in an arrangement made with smart contracts. Smart contracts are pre-fed with conditions, and they become automatically applicable. Somewhat like the rummy game rules that become applicable when certain conditions are fulfilled, but in a digital context. 

However, smart contracts have become groundbreaking in many industries, including gaming. To understand its gaming impact, one has to look beyond a single poker or rummy game platform and think of the whole gaming landscape.

Areas of Influence of Smart Contracts   

Smart contract as a market was valued at over $1.71 billion last year and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 24.7% till 2032. This is based on its relevance and growing future importance in a variety of industries.

Any industry that has come in contact with blockchain technology can enjoy the benefits of smart contracts. Smart contracts are created and stored in a digital form on a blockchain. They run autonomously based on the fulfilment of parameters.

If you buy and sell in a cryptocurrency exchange, a smart contract will facilitate the transaction, transfer the ownership and complete the transaction. All of this is done without involving any intermediary. Smart contracts run on “if/when” and “then” conditions. So, “if and when” certain conditions are met, “then” the smart contract executes the required action.

Buying crypto is just one of the many ways smart contracts are being used. The purchase of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) is another area where smart contracts come into play. The smart contract verifies the NFT transaction and transfers the ownership to the buyer. Notably, a gaming NFT worth $3.76 billion was estimated to be traded in 2023.

Smart Contract Use Cases

IBM is using smart contracts in its ‘Food Trust’ tracker. Smart contracts track food products from their origin to their consumption. Here, smart contracts ensure food safety by highlighting compliance violations or probabilities of contamination. Small businesses are paying IBM $100 per month for this blockchain tracker, while big enterprises are subscribing to it for a steep $10,000!

Other recent uses include the decentralised insurance platform Etherisc. They process flight delay insurance through smart contracts. Smart contracts verify the instances of delay and automatically disburse the insurance amount to travellers. 

The real estate platform Propy uses smart contracts to handle all aspects of property transactions. Besides, decentralised finance transactions use smart contracts to enforce the loan terms automatically. 

The Blockchain Connection 

Blockchain is a decentralised ledger that records transactions and maintains them with transparency and security. A smart contract, once created, is also stored in the blockchain. 

The prelude to a smart contract is the identification of the probable parties to the transaction and the terms and conditions to be met. A code is written to incorporate the if/when and then conditions into the smart contract. In the next step, the connection with blockchain is formally established.

The smart contract gets stored and distributed in the blockchain network. From then on, as and when the smart contract is executed, the information automatically gets updated in all blockchain nodes. In the meantime, the transaction gets recorded in the blockchain in a tamper-proof form. Presently, blockchain transactions, like a Bitcoin transfer, take 1 to 1.5 hours for confirmation.

Why are Contracts Getting Smarter?

The growing preference for smart contracts is apparent from the aforementioned examples. They are automating the execution of transactions and bringing the blockchain advantage to the table. This growing preference is also seen in the gaming ecosystem. 

From a gaming perspective, it is relevant to find out why smart contracts are preferred and how they are value-adding. In a regular gaming platform, there are robust mechanisms in place to ensure fair play and transparency. RummyCulture, for instance, ensures a strict no-bot rummy game experience and facilitates secure, encrypted transactions. With smart contracts, these measures go to a decentralised level. Any attempts to tamper with rummy game rules, for instance, would automatically trigger the fair play conditions. Besides, it is automatically recorded in the unalterable yet accessible blockchain network.

What makes smart contracts groundbreaking, at least in gaming, is the decentralised ownership of gaming assets. Players can now own and trade in-game assets, as these are stored as unique digital tokens on the blockchain.  

Conclusion

In gaming, smart contracts have made transactions more reliable and tamper-proof through real-time monitoring and by eliminating intermediary influence. Despite the concerns about scalability challenges in blockchain networks, we should not be surprised to see smart contracts getting adopted by more and more gaming platforms in the future.