35 The evolution of gaming with SSI
Sungjun (Calvin) Park and Jake Hostetler
The security of personal data and service accounts is an issue across all industries. However, the issue is even more critical and emotional to gamers because their accounts also contain devoted time and purchased in-game assets—plus they represent an important personal connection to the gamer’s virtual self. In this chapter, Sungjun (Calvin) Park, a product manager at a Korean blockchain company, and Jake Hostetler, who works on writing and business development for Metadium, outline how the gaming industry can be transformed by implementing self-sovereign identity (SSI).
There are about 2.3 billion gamers across the globe. This number will only increase as the global games market is expected to grow from $137.9 billion in 2018 to more than $180.1 billion in 2021.[1] Popular games like Battleground and MARVEL Future Fight are built around the concept of in-game identity and assets, which fulfill many psychological drives to be noticed, respected, and interacted with inside of a single game.[2] However, there is a common misconception about the autonomy of in-game identity.