Nothing that couldn't be done without the drawbacks of the blockchain, Home already does IDs to guard against duplication glitches, but that doesn't help with other cheats however you implement it. As for trading outside of the game...don't really see the point of that, or anything that might make that attractive to the Pokemon Company.
You “don’t see the point” of platform-agnostic trading with unique hashes that cannot be duplicated, cheats or no cheats? Okay. What drawbacks? The blockchain exists regardless of whether you take advantage of it or not.
Sure, this may have been the intended use, but I honestly just don't see a positive application of blockchain tech in games. I'm sure it's got positive uses, and maybe it can be useful in this industry, but I've yet to see it. And if NFTs are involved, it's almost certain that they're going to attempt to use this as a way to generate income.
I'd really rather they just make good games. Sever the ties with Niantic, and let your devs have the time they need to actually build a good experience.
I’m perfectly fine with using the blockchain for unique assets that can be traded, in any game. Take something like Fallout 4 as an example - every Legendary drop is, to some extent, random - there’s a pool of status effects, looks and other characteristics that make the item unique. If you power that mechanism with the blockchain, those items exist in *and* outside of the game. Take it to a more massive scale, something along the lines of No Man’s Sky, and the advantages become even more apparent. Let’s not pretend we haven’t seen this before, we’ve been trading Diablo items on Battle.Net for years, and all of those are random as well. There’s no shortage of games with built-in economies- MMO’s especially can take advantage of the tech. It’s untapped utility that gamers unnecessarily whinge about - nobody’s forcing anyone to participate. NFT hate is, for the most part, unwarranted. Whether people like it or not, digital ownership protocols are the future, and digital assets are only the testing ground for a technology that will absolutely become a part of our daily life in the foreseeable future.
Just to give *one* example of how Pokémon specifically could utilise this is unique Pokémon forms. It doesn’t take a genius to create a set of assets that get composed into one coherent whole, get a specific skin slapped on it and bam - you have yourself a unique, one-of-a-kind shiny, along with a certificate of ownership that cannot be falsified. It’s easy, and it can be fun if you do it right. Will the Pokémon Company do it right?
…they haven’t done anything right for years, but I digress. I assume they’ll utilise the technology in the most lazy, stupid and uninspired way, following the path of least resistance, as they have for the last n-teen years, if they’ll utilise it at all (Pokémon fans crying on Twitter apparently have more sway than designers, shareholders or just about anyone with a lick of sense in their head).
For that to work, the game should be always connected to a server that generates unique IDs for each pokemon encounter... that, or just making the game fully cloud.
You can't have offline blockchain, and if Nintendo lets players play offline that will allow them to manipulate local data to get counterfeit pokemon...
You can roll for a hash the moment the unit logs on, with some verification checks prior to the ID being assigned. Some cheaters will slip through, but let’s be real - it’s a video game, nobody cares *that* much. Alternatively, only Pokémon caught when you’re online are verified - easy peasy. There’s ways around this problem that don’t take a whole lot of “enginerding” to solve.
Why do I feel like that's not all they're gonna use it for...
Because that’s be a smart use of the technology, and Pokémon games are made so that people who don’t know any better consoom product. You’re right, see above.
This is exactly the kind of thing that web3 was initially developed for. Unique digital tokens that represent a unique digital good s (Pokemon). I get that the kneejerk reaction is to hate anything related to blockchain but this actually makes sense for a pokemon game
We can only hope against hope. Unfortunately we’re also dealing with one of the least creative companies in the industry that’s geared to make the most profit by putting in the least effort, so I have a feeling that’s not going to be it. Collectible Pokémon cards are more likely, even if it’s a huge waste of effort.
