Patrick on Nostr: I was listening to RabbitHoleRecap last night and was excited to hear the start of ...

I was listening to RabbitHoleRecap (nprofile…raye) last night and was excited to hear the start of the show talking about Bitcoin gaming. There are parts I fully agreed with and parts that I'd love to debate. The full show isn't about gaming but here's a clip on the conversation around this post:

https://fountain.fm/clip/uLScC0fjdv78OXLZyiE3 (Timestamp 3:03 to 4:30 of The Coinbase Rugs Continue in case my Fountain clip won't load for you.)

ODELL (nprofile…zx3h) mentions early on that Fortnite with sats has always been a dream of his and I couldn't agree more. I think gaming has the potential to make Bitcoin way more mainstream while offering gaming experiences that just can't happen in a fiat world. When done right I even think it's enough to make MartyBent (nprofile…l2yj) find the time to game! 🤣

Matt goes on to say that Epic Games will never do it because it has to be a challenger to make the move. I think this was a bit hyperbolic because once Bitcoin gaming becomes the standard, Epic will have to do it to keep up with the Joneses. On the other hand I completely understand his point that they may be one of the last to move.

We've already seen smaller studios, like 1047, adopt Bitcoin as a means of bringing users back in when they teamed with ZBD (nprofile…x85g) back in 2023 to have Bitcoin added to Splitgate. ( https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/zbd-launches-bitcoin-prize-pool-for-splitgate ) I saw first hand how this invigorated a community around that game for players that had never played it in it's first 4 years of being on the market.

Then came the part that really inspired me to write this post. I've had chatgpt reword the following two paragraphs given my critical view of the project.

Matt mentions that he helped convince Satoshi Games to launch Lightnite with Bitcoin and that it was a massive development sinkhole. I was deeply invested in SG's vision, purchasing an early copy of Lightnite, their original Liquid-based NFTs and even created web properties to promote their game because I strongly supported their mission. Unfortunately, they eventually shifted their focus and moved entirely to Solana.

In my opinion, the move to Solana was not because Bitcoin itself created insurmountable development hurdles, but rather due to business decisions that favored an easier issuance of tokens. As someone who passionately supported their Bitcoin-centric mission, I was disappointed and publicly expressed my frustrations, leading to being blocked by their team on Twitter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3I9CWMRf4Y

ORANGEMART (nprofile…wlck) is a complete antithesis to the concept of Bitcoin in gaming being tough to develop. They launched a modded server on Rust years ago and have continued to build and enhance the experience. Supported by the community through geyser (nprofile…f2t4) ( https://geyser.fund/project/orange ), they’ve consistently delivered sats directly into players' hands simply for participating.

Remarkably, they initiated this with virtually zero traditional development. Instead, they creatively repurposed existing in-game assets to represent Bitcoin and utilized Lightsats (nprofile…5rqe) vouchers dispensed from in-game vending machines. This innovative setup provided a Bitcoin earning experience without any significant development overhead. Their vision and dedication directly inspired me to invest thousands of hours into Rust.

Inspired by Orange’s mission, I've since developed multiple plugins for Rust, including Orangemart.cs. This plugin allows any Rust server to integrate seamlessly with an LNBits server, enabling players to easily move sats in and out of the game via Discord-sent lightning invoices or payouts with nothing more needed than a lightning address.

Creating this plugin was far from a development sinkhole, it was essentially "vibe-coded," before that was even a term. Leveraging prompts fed into chatgpt, I was able to learn enough about Rust’s modding framework to integrate Bitcoin directly into the game. I completed the first working version with just a few weeks of my spare time, clearly disproving the notion of Bitcoin gaming as inherently difficult or resource-intensive to develop. (I'm certainly no real game developer!)

I've since launched my own Rust server in collaboration with Orange to offer a unique take on the Rust experience. I've incorporated virtual Bitcoin mining that let's players use in-game Bitaxes to "hash" and turn those hashes in for rewards similar to a FPPS mining pool. This then determines the rewards they can claim at the end of the wipe based on the number of shares they turn in. I've found managing a Rust server more work than integrating Bitcoin into the game.

TL:DR - Bitcoin is likely the future of gaming. LLMs will continue to reduce hurdles for development and market forces will eventually push teams to focus on the hardest money as players demand real rewards for their time and effort. This will make cash grabs around issuing your own currency less valuable and further entrench Bitcoin into gaming.