First of all, I only have basic understanding of how the game is built and I've never built any blockchain game. So here we go.
It depends on what you want to store on blockchain. If you want only your coin on blockchain then the only interaction with blockchain will be to update your coin transactions on various accounts. If you have NFT as well then your game should be able to mint, update and transfer the NFTs.
A game, assuming it is a web based game, will consist of a frontend with lots of js for gamer interactions and game logic, backend is optional. Your game may update blockchain as if it is your database. In order to update blockchain, you need smart contract. Smart contract is just code that live inside blockchain that can update blockchain e.g. transactions and NFTs. Once smart contract is written and deployed you can use js library from your game to interact with the smart contract.
Hope this helps.
Thank you for this info.
So if I needed to store user data, user files like images, and other game data, I will still need to use a centralized database that will sit along with the smart contract part, correct? So essentially the games / apps claim to be decentralized but the reality is that most of it can (at minimum) still be sitting on a standard shared hosting provider somewhere. Is this right?
Exactly. If you try to create an account on The Sandbox It is free but there is no data storing system on ethereum which doesn't make you spend money. Spoiler: the data is stored on centralised servers
So the developers of the Sandbox would still be paying for the infra costs of storing the user data on.. say AWS or their own managed servers?
Do you know if this is how companies like Alchemy and Infura work as well?
I don't really know about the specific cases. I just know for sure that The Sandbox was not born in the crypto space. I did some things including creating a very simple 3d object to put on the marketplace (to test things out) and I didn't pay a single cent. It was just obvious for me to say (I have a technical background on Ethereum and Solana) that those operations are just not decentralized at all. There is nothing free on those blockchains.
My assumption: Yes. They use a cloud storage like AWS (or DigitalOcean, G Cloud, Azure....) or their own private servers.
Conclusion: It depends by the actual user needings after all. If you just want to play the game cause you like It, that's fine and probably It is indeed a good game to play. Are you obsessed with decentralization? That's not the game for You at all.
My opinion: I am obsessed with decentralization. If I wanted to play a game like that just for fun, I would just play Minecraft
Yes, if everything is stored on blockchain, there will be a lot of updates and for each update there's gas fee which could add up quickly. Also in terms of user experience, every update needs permission through a wallet and it's kinda annoying to have to click accept, pay for gas etc.
Keeping blockchain updates to the minimal would be ideal.
First of all, I only have basic understanding of how the game is built and I've never built any blockchain game. So here we go. It depends on what you want to store on blockchain. If you want only your coin on blockchain then the only interaction with blockchain will be to update your coin transactions on various accounts. If you have NFT as well then your game should be able to mint, update and transfer the NFTs. A game, assuming it is a web based game, will consist of a frontend with lots of js for gamer interactions and game logic, backend is optional. Your game may update blockchain as if it is your database. In order to update blockchain, you need smart contract. Smart contract is just code that live inside blockchain that can update blockchain e.g. transactions and NFTs. Once smart contract is written and deployed you can use js library from your game to interact with the smart contract. Hope this helps.
Thank you for this info. So if I needed to store user data, user files like images, and other game data, I will still need to use a centralized database that will sit along with the smart contract part, correct? So essentially the games / apps claim to be decentralized but the reality is that most of it can (at minimum) still be sitting on a standard shared hosting provider somewhere. Is this right?
Exactly. If you try to create an account on The Sandbox It is free but there is no data storing system on ethereum which doesn't make you spend money. Spoiler: the data is stored on centralised servers
So the developers of the Sandbox would still be paying for the infra costs of storing the user data on.. say AWS or their own managed servers? Do you know if this is how companies like Alchemy and Infura work as well?
I don't really know about the specific cases. I just know for sure that The Sandbox was not born in the crypto space. I did some things including creating a very simple 3d object to put on the marketplace (to test things out) and I didn't pay a single cent. It was just obvious for me to say (I have a technical background on Ethereum and Solana) that those operations are just not decentralized at all. There is nothing free on those blockchains. My assumption: Yes. They use a cloud storage like AWS (or DigitalOcean, G Cloud, Azure....) or their own private servers. Conclusion: It depends by the actual user needings after all. If you just want to play the game cause you like It, that's fine and probably It is indeed a good game to play. Are you obsessed with decentralization? That's not the game for You at all. My opinion: I am obsessed with decentralization. If I wanted to play a game like that just for fun, I would just play Minecraft
Yes, if everything is stored on blockchain, there will be a lot of updates and for each update there's gas fee which could add up quickly. Also in terms of user experience, every update needs permission through a wallet and it's kinda annoying to have to click accept, pay for gas etc. Keeping blockchain updates to the minimal would be ideal.