Can Blockchain End Video Game Lag Forever?

Video games have come a long way from arcades in a dingy bowling alley. Long gone are the days of single player video games. Now multiplayer games are what rule the gaming landscape.

Some blockbuster games find that gamers play up to seven times longer through online multiplayer than they do through single player. When game developers begin understand this, it can mean more revenue being generated by their game. When they don’t, it’s a missed opportunity for extra product sales. This is primarily because there are a couple of hurdles that must be overcome with online gaming.

Lag is a Drag

The first hurdle developers have to overcome is the issue of bandwidth. Bandwidth is at a premium for gamers. It’s expensive, but necessary. Low bandwidth means more lag time, which creates a less than desirable user experience. On the flip side, adequate bandwidth means gamers can play without a hitch, and are more likely to make in-game purchases and recommend a game to a friend, all increasing revenue.

One reason why it’s difficult for developers to have enough bandwidth for their online gaming platforms is because it’s expensive. Bandwidth is expensive because it requires servers to power the online experience. Servers are often cloud based or dedicated host based. All of this is generally outsourced, as managing servers and writing code yourself can be extremely time consuming and complicated. These factors lead bandwidth providers to drive up the price, making it extremely expensive for a gaming company to purchase extra bandwidth.

These issues often result in lag time, especially when a game is initially launched and the bandwidth problem hasn’t been dealt with adequately. This is arguably the most problematic deterrent, because lag time can get you shot, figuratively.

If you’re running on small bandwidth, the response time from your controller to the actual gaming experience has a direct effect with the play of the game. In high intensity games, a slow response time, even by a second, can be the difference between life or death. When users feel they are experiencing lag time, they’ll give up on the game.

Blockchain Eliminates Lag

These problems and more can be fixed by pooling bandwidth on a decentralized blockchain. Blockchains are the driving technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. However those coins were just the beginning. Researchers are taking the technology and thought process from what made Bitcoin and Ethereum successful and applying it to other industries, like gaming.

The reality is that, while bandwidth and processing power come at a premium to gamers, they are in excess to much of the regular public. Take your average computer user for example. There’s a good chance they are using an expensive computer with more than enough bandwidth, only to use it for word processing and scrolling through Facebook.

By decentralizing and pooling bandwidth, companies can access that unused internet power and leverage it on their blockchain. This provides the developers with control of more bandwidth at far reduced prices, resulting in a more reliable and cost effective experience for gamers.

This is exactly what Network Units is doing. The company is harnessing the power behind decentralized platforms based on the blockchain in order to incentivize users to rent out their unused bandwidth, providing better resources for developers to work with.

This pooled bandwidth is then offered to gamers in order to enhance their gaming experience and effectively end the problem of lag time. Bandwidth renters are paid with NU tokens, the coin for the Network Units cryptocurrency.

Blockchain Reformation

Network Units is just one more example of how the ideology of blockchains can be utilized for much more than investing in an alternative form of currency. In the case of Network Units, it provides ways for multiple parties within the gaming industry to either save on money, or make money.

In fact, even if you’re not a gamer yourself, Network Units can help you make money. This is done when you rent out your unused bandwidth or GPU space on the blockchain so it can be accessed by gaming developers.

The ways blockchain can be implemented into everyday life are unlimited. And the more problems we run into throughout our life and businesses, the more we’ll see blockchain being utilized to solve those issues.