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Gaming tech firm Razer has teamed up with OpenAI founder Sam Altman’s crypto venture Tools for Humanity to prevent unauthorized bots in video games.
They’re calling their solution Razer ID Verified by World ID. Once you have a verified Razer ID, you’ll be a verified human and games opting into the program will check that status.
It becomes part of your Razer account, and the gaming-focused brand will first offer verified Razer ID logins on the upcoming Immutable battler game Tokyo Beast, a game I wrote about last month. The game will offer pooled NFTs and use the Immutable zkEVM blockchain.
I asked Razer whether this might be used at some point to also prevent shopping bots from sniping products from their site or other sites (meaning, you’d have to have a verified Razer ID to buy something from them online).
Instead, they’re “hyper-focused” on providing in-game identity verification. Tokyo Beast is the only game they’ve announced that will use this tech so far, but they’re hoping to add more games to this program in the future.
Here’s how the verified Razer ID works: You can use your existing Razer ID account, when logged in, to get the World App. From there, you create a World ID account, and then verify yourself as human and not an AI bot. You can do this by either going to an IRL shiny Orb or by adding your NFC-enabled passport to your account.
Does this process remind you of anything else we have to do in crypto? Yeah, it’s like KYC, or Know Your Customer, that’s happening here.
Tools for Humanity, the for-profit company building on the World Network, says ZK proofs are used to keep your data safe. In simple terms, a ZK proof is a cryptographic way to verify that information is true without revealing the information itself. And VPN users, don’t worry — Tools for Humanity Chief Product Officer Tiago Sada tells me the new feature has been designed to work even if your VPN is on. Human VPN users are sometimes flagged across the internet as potential bots and can be asked to complete CAPTCHAs, so this is an important part of the conversation if you’re trying to protect your digital privacy while also proving you’re human.
For some, it may still feel like too much to have to hand over your passport or get your eyeballs scanned just to play a video game, though.
For others, it might feel like a necessary step into an AI-filled future. Bots are indeed a challenge for both traditional non-crypto games as well as blockchain games, where financial rewards can be at stake.
“We get a lot of feedback from gamers that in gameplay, gamers don’t want to be playing against bots,” Razer Chief Corporate Officer Wei-Pin Choo tells me.
World also conducted a survey that found that 59% of gamers who participated in the survey said they “regularly encounter” unauthorized bots in the games they play. 71% of those surveyed said they feel bots are wrecking the competitive gaming experience.
World Network, formerly known as Worldcoin, is a blockchain that’s intended to “verify humans.” There’s a corresponding native token, Worldcoin, which is given out to those who get their eyeballs scanned. Those in Kenya were paid 25 Worldcoin at the time, or $50 at the time, to get their irises scanned (today, 25 Worldcoin are worth about $21).
World has faced some controversy over biometric data privacy concerns and has been accused of exploiting users in developing countries.
Regulators in Hong Kong, Brazil, Spain, Kenya, France, and other countries have taken issue with World’s practices. Spain, Kenya, and Hong Kong chose to shut down World’s operations, at least temporarily, in their respective countries.
While it could help verify gamers aren’t bots, World ID isn’t a bulletproof solution to ensure all of its users are actually who they say they are, though.
Last year, Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong confirmed that police were investigating seven people suspected of buying or selling World ID accounts and warned that the accounts could “then be misused for criminal activities such as money laundering and terrorism financing.”
Ultimately, though, I’m glad tech firms are recognizing that bots can be genuinely disruptive in video games — and are willing to try something, even if very experimental, to see if it could combat the problem.
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