¶ Arcade
Saito Arcade is an open source gaming portal that runs as a fully-distributed peer-to-peer browser application. The arcade showcases any games the user has installed. We believe that the Arcade and its games offer some of the richest and most enjoyable web3 experiences.
Because the Saito Arcade and its games do not have centralized servers, many games use sophisticated cryptographic techniques to ensure provably-fair gameplay without the need for a trusted third-party. But all games, regardless of whether they rely on complex cryptographic operations or simply single-player experiences, benefit from the Saito Consensus's natural ability to fund open source applications by allowing service providers to earn their share of payment for any transactions generated by the games.
For these reasons the Web3 Foundation has recognized the Saito Game Engine as a standard for open games.
I like this idea and think it provides something REALLY valuable to the ecosystem, and takes blockchain gaming in a very different (and good!) direction
- Bill Laboon, Head of Education and Grants at Web3 Foundation
- Arcade source code.
¶ Why Build an Open Source Arcade?
High quality games with significant followings often struggle to make money from digital sales. Companies like Apple and Google force developers to list games at extremely low prices to compete for visibility in their distribution channels, and then restrict how publishers can collect money from users.
Web 2 forces publishers to revert to selling physical editions, merchandise, access to lightly-veiled gambling boxes or tokens of questionable utility and origin. Saito blurs the line between developer and publisher through new and better business models which rid developers of the need to pay rent to centralized, digital storefronts.
Saito Arcade, and Saito generally, is an open index of applications which any node, full or lite, can earn fees for serving to users. Open source developers can thus route their application's transactions into the network and earn the larger part of that fee. Developers can simply and permissionlessly become their own publishers. Saito revolutionizes open source monetization.
The best games may still gravitate towards free-to-play models, but alternative services and their monetization are not to be restricted: leader-boards, rankings, match-making services, and the like. Game designers on Saito have the freedom to experiment with different choices. Some games may be better off integrating decentralized advertising networks, or collecting micro-payments on a game-by-game or even a turn-by-turn basis.
¶ Mental Poker Techniques
For question of how the Saito Game Engine allows multiple parties to fairly agree on the state of truly random elements necessary for many games on the arcade, the answer begins with Mental Poker:
Indeed, the most direct use of the techniques which authors Rivest, Shamir and Adleman (RSA) devised are most directly employed and enhanced in Saito's very own, peer-to-peer, Web 3 Poker - available to play on the arcade or to audit on Github.
Mental Poker exploits the commutative properties of public key encryption schemes to encrypt and shuffle a deck of cards using the keys of each player, and then progressively decrypt card when they must be revealed. A more complete explanation can be sought via Wikipedia.
The Saito Arcade has taken the principles of Mental Poker and generalized and extended the technique to support several adversarial players and to encode and integrate arbitrary values which extend far past a simple game of Poker. Titles like Twilight Struggle and Settlers of Saitoa are two flagship examples.
¶ Games
There is a good amount of games running on the Saito platform now and more to come that are currently in development. Some games have also been made by members of the community. All benefit from the broad suite of functionality available to all Saito Applications: text chats, video calls, integrated cryptocurrency support and more.
For a full list of the games available in the Saito Arcade please see the mods directory. Links to some of the more popular games that are playable on the Arcade can also be found on the applications page in our wiki.