I have some things written on this already, but it is worth brainstorming ideas to see what else we can come up with. A blog on this topic (link), which outlined some of the relationship between old funding models and new, also the link between decentralised funding and governance.
This is not necessarily related to having an in-game reason for raising money, as that is for a separate thread. ( #8 ).
It is worth looking traditional payment methods for ideas.
Funding models of traditional games
Boxed game
Kickstarter
Subscriptions
Freemium
Funding models of blockchain projects
Bitcoin: none.
Ethereum: ICO (presale)
Zcash: fraction of block reward.
Funding models of blockchain gaming projects
Having on-going funding is tough in a decentralised model. If a player wants to fund their account with a credit card they need to buy something that already exists (i.e. tokens from another player). Typically, new players buying tokens shouldn't be purchasing funds out of thin air. If the game is centralised, then it is possible, but no entity within the network is supposed to be privileged.
Xaya: ICO + Optional Tx fee (goes as a reward to the devs, or otherwise burnt)
Decentraland / Sandbox / CryptoVoxels: ICO (?).
CryptoKitties: claim not to have held an ICO, but I thought they sold tokens to raise money.
Future possibilities for blockchain gaming projects
Having on-going funding is tough in a decentralised model. If a player wants to fund their account with a credit card they need to buy something that already exists (i.e. tokens from another player). Typically, new players buying tokens shouldn't be purchasing funds out of thin air. If the game is centralised, then it is possible, but no entity within the network is supposed to be privileged.
Player Subscriptions in crypto (basically depletes some supply of funds. ERC-1337) requires the players buying tokens in the first place, but what advantage would a player have to support the developers? There needs to be a reason to send money to the devs and not just buy tokens from another player.
Block reward, like with Z-Cash.
Transparent but places some privilege on the dev team. Certainly, the community would be free to fork the code, but they might lose out on the network efforts (everyone on the same chain).
Tx fee, but with variable cost.
High reward areas have higher fees, of which some portion can go to the developers, some portion could seed a pool for new players. This means higher level areas will generate more fees for devs, which incentivises the devs to help players get to high levels.
Transmutation
devs convert tokens into new items and inject those into the game. Those items could be sold for profit. This means that the supply of such new items is transparent and part of (say) the block reward model.
Ad model.
Popular projects will have a lot of eyeballs on them. Placing ads inside the official game client could help with funding, but need to be mindful not to break privacy. An open source game client will naturally be forked.
Offline swag.
Although probably doesn't generate enough revenue.
Exchange with fees.
Although probably presents a bunch of legal hassles.
I have some things written on this already, but it is worth brainstorming ideas to see what else we can come up with. A blog on this topic (link), which outlined some of the relationship between old funding models and new, also the link between decentralised funding and governance.
This is not necessarily related to having an in-game reason for raising money, as that is for a separate thread. ( #8 ).
It is worth looking traditional payment methods for ideas.
Funding models of traditional games
Funding models of blockchain projects
Funding models of blockchain gaming projects
Having on-going funding is tough in a decentralised model. If a player wants to fund their account with a credit card they need to buy something that already exists (i.e. tokens from another player). Typically, new players buying tokens shouldn't be purchasing funds out of thin air. If the game is centralised, then it is possible, but no entity within the network is supposed to be privileged.
Future possibilities for blockchain gaming projects
Having on-going funding is tough in a decentralised model. If a player wants to fund their account with a credit card they need to buy something that already exists (i.e. tokens from another player). Typically, new players buying tokens shouldn't be purchasing funds out of thin air. If the game is centralised, then it is possible, but no entity within the network is supposed to be privileged.
Player Subscriptions in crypto (basically depletes some supply of funds. ERC-1337) requires the players buying tokens in the first place, but what advantage would a player have to support the developers? There needs to be a reason to send money to the devs and not just buy tokens from another player.
References