So what happens when player 1 decides to play game abc and becomes fabulously wealthy. Then game xyz comes out and player 1 is automatically the best player in the game before anyone has a chance to do anything simply because player 1 has a massive bankroll coming in from abc. This is the real issue with creating a universal currency. It causes you to ruin the integrity of a stand alone game. For example, is it fair if I go run 500 bots on Diablo 2 then trade all those items off for some currency and then trade that currency for all of the best gear in World of Warcraft? (This is currently happening btw and it hurts both games)
That is why there should be an exchange rate between games and that is why not every game has to support Xcoin. In many games that is a good thing. If you put in X amount of time to become fabulously wealthy in one game such as for example Diablo 2 and then Diablo 3 comes out and you want to transfer your wealth from Diablo 2 to Diablo 3 you should be able to. The exchange rate can be high enough to discourage a person or there can be a limit to how much a person an transfer.
The way things are now people already use USD to do this so nothing would change. The integrity of Diablo 2? Diablo 2 always had people using USD to buy accounts or buy in game items. It's really simple, many games will have to be redesigned and also not every game will support something like this but ultimately if players really want to make these trades they will regardless of if the game supports it. Nothing stops me from setting up a site right now to let people bid on in game characters with wealth and items in exchange for Bitcoin.
So I do see your argument but I don't think that just because some games would be ruined for you that we shouldn't have an Xcoin at all. The ability to transfer results or wealth between games is incredibly useful and I don't think you've factored it all in how much it could change gaming but not only gaming but the entire economy and how we live. You will have people who will get wealthy in the game world and in the real world at the same time. Why wouldn't we want this as gamers?
Now think of the potential of ARGs. With an ARG you can literally create games which solve real world problems and people can get paid and get wealthy playing those games. The only thing missing is the universal global virtual currency to connect all the different serious game networks together. A serious game is a gamification which solves a real world or serious problem. Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 don't really solve any real world problems. That being said even if they don't solve real world problems and while I do not want these less than serious games to be ruined I would put priority on the serious games because those games can fundamentally change our world and the economy.
Here you go
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game http://www.argn.com/tag/serious_games/Please do some research into ARGs if you don't know how important they are. Just as Bitcoin and the Internet can change the world ARGs can fundamentally change what work is. It is a development such as this which would make Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies mainstream as everyone would want to play some ARG at some point and would have to buy the coins and spend them within the context of the game.
Maybe this could be implemented using colored coins, either using btc or on an alt coin blockchain.
Yep , that is what I was thinking. But I don't know enough about colored coins as I have not seen anything actually implement the concept, I would say that yes it's related. I don't think it should use BTC but something which is based around it but somehow more suitable to ARGs and games. Namecoin is something I was thinking about as well as having interesting properties for something like this. This thread isn't a technical thread, it's a thought experiment to see if the Bitcoin community is ready for something like this and to see how it would be received.