Most of this discussion also displays a comprehensive lack of knowledge about how games work. The idea that you could buy a sword and then use it in any other game is the stupidest thing that has been proposed, since no two games are alike and your fucking sword would have to be reimplemented in every other game. We won’t even get into issues like balance, fitting into the setting, or games that simply don’t have weapons in them (dude! It would be a cosmetic, duh!).
2 Likes
Yeah, the game NFT proposals fit into two categories - NFTs being used for things that were already being done perfectly fine without NFTs (and where the NFTs add nothing to their functionality), and NFTs being used for things that are logically impossible (and where the NFTs don’t actually add anything to make them possible).
The actual, current usage for NFTs in games is for items that work within only a single game - i.e. the first category.
2 Likes
Where, as you mention, they provide no additional value/functionality beyond existing non-blockchain systems. It’s an ouroboros of hype!
I am also pretty sure that no game company wants to get caught up in the regulatory nightmare that would come with creating NFT market places where people could actually buy and sell nft-based in-game assets…
2 Likes
Well, they’re doing it. There were some early NFT-based games (that seem to be collapsing already, as they are basically ponzi schemes), where to play the game you have to make a significant investment in it (like $1000 worth), and then “playing” the game generates NFTs which can be sold for income.
For traditional game publishers who have already had real-money transactions in their games for years and that are only more recently getting on the NFT-train, NFTs might be appealing because of their unregulated nature right now. They might be seeing it as a way of avoiding some of the issues they (or other publishers) have had with game item marketplaces. (The NFTs don’t really change anything, of course - the regulatory issues would still be there, and the in-game assets are only ever going to be useful for just that game, even if they sometimes imply otherwise.) So far the game companies (e.g. Ubisoft) doing this are partnering with third parties to run some of the crypto stuff and the marketplaces, but if they’re serious they’ll eventually run marketplaces themselves.
2 Likes
and that’s why god invented prints, t-shirts, mugs, tote bags, patreon, and kickstarter. nft’s don’t really ( in my opinion ) provide any newly significant support mechanism except for that it’s “the latest thing”
a nifty token to some, but essentially redundant
4 Likes
they all want in on the action
execs think it’s the biggest thing since loot boxes. a new - if completely totally toxic for players - revenue stream
3 Likes
I don’t take the Ubisoft stuff too seriously - Ubisoft has never seen a shiny new thing they won’t give a shot and then abandon completely (is JGL still getting people to work for free or on spec for Beyond Good and Evil 2?)
I think that Blizzard’s experience with the real money auction house is the guide post here - not worth it and doesn’t improve the game at all.
Of course game companies are companies and will, I assume, have to go through a cycle of trying all this stuff for themselves before realizing it makes no sense. Or, more likely, discovering that the rubes are into it 
2 Likes
I’m just saying, there is a difference between NFTs that have nothing to do with the content creator and those that do (at least for a tiny sub-set of NFT buyers who aren’t just speculators). NFTs are still absolutely shit for that purpose, of course.
Not that t-shirts, mugs, bags and even prints were workable options for certain kinds of digital artists, and Patreons and Kickstarters demand particular kinds of outputs from artists (and don’t bring in the speculators and their money); there’s room for a new support mechanism for artists - it’s just that NFTs aren’t remotely it.
It’ll be interesting to see how this all shakes out - one impact already is that some big NFT collectors have apparently started looking at (and buying) physical art for the first time as a result.
Well, they have been generating NFTs that are being sold on NFT marketplaces (barely). It likely won’t last that long - and I suspect by the time most of the big publishers get into NFTs the failures will have piled up enough to almost immediately cool their ardor and those efforts won’t go anywhere either.
Rather, think “Team Fortress II” and “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.” Extremely successful real-money game item marketplaces that have had enormous sums going through them. (And yeah, legal problems, too.) That’s what these publishers are hoping for, even if they’re not going to get it.
3 Likes
5 Likes
What kind of fucking genius got @fart? Everything in your life is downhill from there
1 Like
The metaphor holds though, because the receipt doesn’t say which DVD player you bought, nor is there anything stopping you from photocopying that receipt 10 times and claiming you bought eleven DVD players that day.
That’s why I specified “it’s proof as far as the person on the other end accepts it as such”, which is basically good enough to return said DVD player at the store because the store mostly trusts you. That’s as far as it goes, and it’s all NFTs might be good for.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
