The reason why Lordmancer 2’s developers are building digital currencies off Ethereum is because the conditions of exchange can be quite trustworthy. “If somebody purchases Lord Coins, they will be kept inside Ethereum,” Teliysyn said, “and even the developers will not have a way to change anything besides what was described in Lord Coin’s smart contract.”

Advertisement

Forging digital economies in games was an early idea among Ethereum enthusiasts. Making it accessible and attractive is another story. Jon “Neverdie” Jacobs, who bought an asteroid in Entropia Universe for $100,000, established with the help of Ultima creator Richard Garriott a cryptocurrency he calls the Teleport token using Ethereum in July with the lofty dream of designing a money-backed infrastructure for a virtual goods economy. The pitch: Gamified jobs in virtual reality will reap the currency, which will eventually be used across virtual reality worlds. Unfortunately, virtual reality technology’s install base is pretty slim right now, so a bustling economy doesn’t seem likely in the near future.

Similarly, Telisyn’s Lordmancer 2 is polished in its beta state, but is, at base, a primitive game. He doesn’t expect anyone to be making a living off the mobile MMORPG: “The amount of cryptocurrency that a player can mine will depend only on the market price of Lord Coin,” he says. Likely, that price will remain low, and therefore so will a player’s potential earnings.

Advertisement

Lordmancer 2 will begin selling its Lord Coins on October 23rd. Right now, its developers are pitching the game to Chinese investors, who know well the desire for big (and legal) money-backed digital marketplaces. Even if these early options don’t boom, they may be laying the groundwork for more mainstream adoption.