Pirate Nation CEO Predicts Thousands of Dedicated Crypto Game Blockchains

Amitt Mahajan—founder and CEO of Proof of Play, the developer of crypto recreation Pirate Nation—predicts that ultimately there will probably be 1000’s of devoted blockchains that every assist particular person functions. 

This comes after his expertise constructing the viral Fb recreation Farmville. Throughout his time growing the informal farming simulator, Zynga operated roughly 64 databases merely to stop the sport from crashing. To Mahajan, the blockchain is simply a sophisticated database.

“At peak, [Farmville] was at about 30 million each day lively customers. So so as to scale a recreation to that, we had like 64 databases,” Mahajan advised Decrypt‘s GG. “On this world, the blockchain is our database. We’re basically utilizing the chain as our knowledge retailer. So so as to scale to any variety of precise utilization, we have to break up transactions throughout chains.”

Beforehand, Pirate Nation was constructing on Ethereum scaling community Polygon, however moved to Arbitrum Nova as a result of rising Polygon fuel charges. Nonetheless, the undertaking noticed a problem in counting on shared networks as a brand new undertaking launching might enhance fuel charges for everybody on the chain.

In February, Pirate Nation eyed up the potential of launching chains for itself and different builders utilizing Arbitrum—in a undertaking known as Multichain.

The on-chain role-playing recreation Pirate Nation is now crusing by itself application-specific chain, Apex, and the founder believes that that is the one logical future for different apps too.

“As quickly as you are an utility with any stage of scale, you want to have the ability to predictably management your fuel prices,” Mahajan advised Decrypt. “My prediction is that there is going to be 1000’s and 1000’s of chains, as folks break up off from these shared layer-2s to application-specific chains.”

We have already seen this pattern throughout a number of blockchain networks. A number of video games constructing on Avalanche are utilizing their very own devoted subnets, for instance, comparable to Shrapnel and the upcoming Off the Grid with its GUNZ community. In one other instance, Treasure is constructing its personal Arbitrum-based Treasure Chain that may characteristic an internet of “Infinity Chains,” or devoted gaming networks.

Since launching by itself app-specific chain, Mahajan mentioned that Pirate Nation has began to replenish the chain with transactions—with the staff already eyeing up a second chain for assist.

“We’ve basically reached the capability of Apex,” Mahajan defined. “Now, so as to proceed to scale the sport, we have to add the B-chain, the C-chain, the D-chain,” he added. “We’ll be including extra chains sooner or later in order that we are able to proceed so as to add and scale the variety of customers within the recreation.”

Needing a number of chains may sound odd or regarding. However for Mahajan, who has expertise constructing video games on this planet of Web2, this isn’t something new. It’s only a new riff on the identical premise of needing scalable structure to assist rising video games.

Mahajan labored for Zynga from 2009 to 2011, throughout this time he headed the event of Farmville. Within the Web3 house, slightly than worrying about in style blockchain video games crashing, builders fear about rising charges as a result of community congestion.

Again when Pirate Nation was on Polygon, the agency mentioned it was paying as much as $4,000 a day in fuel charges to summary them away from gamers—however that wasn’t sustainable for a startup. Though launching 4 or extra chains simply to run one crypto recreation may appear to be an enormous problem, Mahajan sees an upside to the added muscle.

“It was inconvenient to should run 64 databases for Farmville,” he mentioned. “It is inconvenient for us, as a result of we are the first folks doing it. However then it turns into a product.”

Mahajan once more makes use of Web2 to place this into perspective. Ideas like load balancing and caching needed to be invented, the founder defined, to ensure that a product like Fb to be constructed.

—Amitt Mahajan, founder and CEO of Pirate Nation

That is a part of Pirate Nation’s multichain providing, by which Apex is the primary community to be launched. Multichain plans to open up for different recreation and dapp builders to launch their very own networks powered by Arbitrum Orbit, an Ethereum scaling expertise.

“It is coming. There’s positively been curiosity,” Mahajan mentioned. “We have to remedy our personal capability [issues before we take on others.”

Dedicated players

Pirate Nation’s expansion plans come after the game launched its PIRATE token in June. Its listing on Coinbase saw the Ethereum token’s value jump, but price isn’t what the founder is concerned about when it comes to the token launch. 

Instead, he wanted to focus on the 80% of claimed PIRATE tokens currently staked by users, according to a Dune dashboard. By staking these tokens, users earn Proof of Play (PoP) Points which promise to unlock additional benefits within the ecosystem. In part, this high percentage is due to PIRATE tokens not being locked when staked, and allowing users to still spend without any penalties.

To the founder, the high percentage of staked tokens is a bet of confidence by the community and a sign that the game isn’t attracting farmers who just want to dump the token.

“Staking is really a chance for folks to re-affirm that they’re in it for the long-term,” Mahajan explained, “so the fact that so many people, in such a high volume, have done it is encouraging.”

And for those dedicated gamers, the largest on-chain event is just around the corner.

In the coming month, the second World Boss event will take place. This will see players join arms to defeat bosses together, but also compete for their transaction to be the kill shot. Players would be rewarded for their damage dealt and given a 1-of-1 NFT if they landed the kill shot.

This event will be the biggest in-game event that Pirate Nation has ever seen. With this, the network is likely to be strained, especially with the developers already eyeing up a second chain to split transactions. Will it stretch the Apex chain to its limits?

“We’ll see,” Mahajan replied with a smile.

Edited by Andrew Hayward