Is a new era dawning for blockchain gaming?

The gaming industry is characterized by constant change and has always relied on the latest technologies to constantly produce fascinating new game concepts. It is therefore not surprising that some also hope for innovations through the combination of blockchain and gaming. While some see great dangers in blockchain gaming that put the fun on the track because of play-to-earn mechanisms, others see it as the next big revolution. Regardless of which side of the debate you’re on, there’s no denying that blockchain technology has the potential to transform the gaming industry forever. They open up new possibilities and advantages for players and game developers, such as increased transparency of updates and game mechanisms, digital ownership of in-game items, interaction between different games and completely new gaming experiences such as play-to-earn.

Is a new era dawning for blockchain games?

So far, however, most blockchain games have lacked usability, well thought-out game concepts and sustainable in-game economies. However, a new partnership between the two blockchain gaming giants Polygon (MATIC) and Immutable (IMX) could now take the quality of the games to the next level. Both projects have extensive partnerships in the gaming industry and count companies such as Ubisoft, Atari, Animoca Brands, TikTok, Disney, Marvel, DC Comics, Decentraland, Sandbox, Illuvium or Guild of Guardians among their partners.

Additionally, blockchain gaming projects built on top of Polygon and Immutable have things in common in 2022 around two billion US dollars receive funds for the development of their games. Put together more than all other blockchain projects.

The new alliance between Polygon and Immutable is thus the largest in the entire crypto space. But what makes the collaboration between the two crypto gaming giants so special and why is it likely to usher in a new era for blockchain games? To understand this, one needs to know what Immutable is, what technology the project uses and why it could be a game changer for blockchain games development.

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What is Immutable?

immutable is an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution specifically designed for blockchain games and NFTs. The project enables almost zero-fee transactions and uses zero-knowledge (ZK) technology. Basically, similar to the Optimistic Rollup technology, this processes transactions outside of the Ethereum mainchain and then bundles them back to it. As a result, Immutable is currently capable of up to 9,000 transactions per second to perform.

This is behind the partnership with Polygon

Coinciding with the announcement of the Polygon partnership, Immutable announced the launch of a new Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible ZK technology (zkEVM) announced, which uses Polygon’s technology. However, all projects using Immutable’s zkEVM technology must pay for transactions on this network Use IMX token and no MATIC. By the end of the second quarter of 2023, the zkEVM should go fully live. Developers can already experiment with the new zkEVM software developer kits from Immutable.

Despite their new partnership, Immutable and Polygon will continue to operate their own Ethereum scaling solutions. The cooperation only relates to the further development of the zkEVM technology and the connecting their zkEVM networks. Polygon is also planning to launch its own zkEVM-based sidechain on March 27th.

It is likely that Polygon’s zkEVM will be more aimed at a variety of different, decentralized applications, while Immutable’s zkEVM will be aimed specifically at blockchain gaming projects. It thus appears that the strategic cooperation is intended to prevent the two projects from being in direct competition with one another.

The benefits of zkEVM technology

The launch of Immutable’s zkEVM technology will bring some excitement to blockchain game developers bring improvements. Here are a few of the most important advantages in detail:

• Compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM): Developers can seamlessly migrate their games and smart contracts from Ethereum and other EVM-compatible blockchains (BNB Chain, Ethereum, Polygon).
• Extensive library of open source Ethereum smart contracts: Developers can more easily integrate new tools and features as Immutable already has an extensive library of open-source Ethereum smart contracts that can be used to develop games.
• Faster and easier blockchain game development: Overall, zkEVM technology can accelerate game development and provide a better gaming experience without sacrificing decentralization.

Conclusion

The partnership between Polygon and Immutable is a significant step for the blockchain gaming sector. By combining the expertise and resources of both projects, especially in the area of ​​zkEVM technology, the probability increases that there will soon be significantly higher quality games on the crypto market that are more user-friendly and of better quality than Axie Infinity and Co.

This collaboration could therefore have the potential to usher in a new era for blockchain games. The fact is that by launching the zkEVM technology, games can be developed that qualitatively play in a different league than all other blockchain games that have been on the market so far.