Board 8 > So what is your thoughts of NFT/Crypto in videogames?

(+) Yeah! (+)

NFUN posted...

the issue with your whole point about collectibles and such is that it's fundamentally significantly less cool to have an obscure digital certificate whose procurement probably comes from somebody impersonally chucking money at somebody than to have an actual rare physical thing,

"less cool" is subjective, and the prevailing sentiment could change over time. There are also ways of presenting digital assets that are more dynamic than the static image that paper cards are limited to.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'impersonally chucking money at somebody". If you buy a pack of NFT highlights you pay for the pack but then you get to open the pack yourself to find out what you got. I could use some clarification on that point.

NFUN posted...

or something that got at least some kind of real attention from somebody important by getting signed

Autographed NFTs already exist. They are typically 1 of 1s where the athlete/celebrity will sign like an iPad or something 30 different times to make 30 distinctly different signatures for the purpose of those signatures being incorporated in unique NFTs.

NFUN posted...

I'm sure that they'll build some sites so that you can feature your truly owned NFTs as badges or whatever,

These also exist. You can link your wallet to digital galleries to view your NFTs in a 3D space or you can get digital frames for your wall if you want to display a physical version of your NFT.

NFUN posted...

I definitely don't see it as something worth championing over the scummy bullshit they are now

There are scummy corners of the NFT space, and they should absolutely be called out as such. Projects get the rug pulled out from under them on a dishearteningly regular basis. That's why I wanted put an emphasis on being cautious and doing research before investing in one project or another.

I don't see how that makes the space as a whole inherently scummy. People make forgeries of Pokemon cards, those illegitimate happenings don't automatically taint the legitimate side of the experience.

NFUN posted...

Like, why does having a virtual pet need to be an NFT instead of just like a generic gacha purchase

Anyone can catch a Charizard in a Pokemon game. How many people can say they have one of only a few hundred Charizards, and they are all subtly different so no one else has their exact Charizard?

That is the distinction. And admittedly that might not be important to everyone, but that doesn't make it less valid for the people who do enjoy that verifiable uniqueness.

I have spent like a solid 20 or so years wondering why owning any sort of digital collectible would be cool and NFTs have not even kinda changed this, in fact it has made them less cool somehow

physical things are neat because they exist

Anyone can catch a Charizard in a Pokemon game. How many people can say they have one of only a few hundred Charizards, and they are all subtly different so no one else has their exact Charizard?

That is the distinction. And admittedly that might not be important to everyone, but that doesn't make it less valid for the people who do enjoy that verifiable uniqueness.

yeah but that sucks and the people who enjoy that shouldnt get what they want

everyone should be able to have any charizard, keep this finite specific charizard shit out of games

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Anyone can catch a Charizard in a Pokemon game. How many people can say they have one of only a few hundred Charizards, and they are all subtly different so no one else has their exact Charizard?

This is literally already how Pokemon games work, it's just they don't destroy the environment in the process

This is Game Freak. They'll find a way to make the NFT cloneable.

MoogleKupo141 posted...

yeah but that sucks and the people who enjoy that shouldnt get what they want

everyone should be able to have any charizard, keep this finite specific charizard shit out of games

And no one is going to force anyone to play a game like that. I'm not saying that Pokemon Gen 9 should be like that and fundamentally change the experience for everyone. These are different games with different experiences for different people. That's just what it would be like.

Pokemon tried that with Spinda and no one cared!

Hbthebattle posted...

This is literally already how Pokemon games work, it's just they don't destroy the environment in the process

No? If you have a pokemon I could breed the same pokemon with the same exact nature and IVs and moves as yours. It would be time consuming and tedious, but it can be done and except for the trainer ID they would be exactly the same.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

And no one is going to force anyone to play a game like that. I'm not saying that Pokemon Gen 9 should be like that and fundamentally change the experience for everyone. These are different games with different experiences for different people. That's just what it would be like.

i dunno, seems naive to think that stuff wouldnt find its way into legitimate games if its profitable in whatever test nft thing they put out. Like no way Ubisoft doesnt jam it into real Assassins Creed if it pays off in something else.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

No? If you have a pokemon I could breed the same pokemon with the same exact nature and IVs and moves as yours. It would be time consuming and tedious, but it can be done and except for the trainer ID they would be exactly the same.

a lot of people feel a connection to their pokemon because its specifically theirs. That's why GF has been introducing stuff like mints and bottle caps- you can make your personal Pokemon the best it can be

Forceful_Dragon posted...

In Axie in particular there is a large enough playerbase and demand for game assets that people in countries with a low enough cost of living have actually been able to make a living by playing Axie full time. But similar to cryptopunks this is the exception and not the rule. Many other projects simply put "making a game" on their road map to make people believe it's the next Axie when in reality their team doesn't have the technical knowledge required to create something on that scale or have a large enough player base to be self-sustaining. If nobody is playing the game the money for it's economy wont exist. Or if a game has a lot of players, but they are ALL trying to earn+sell there wont be anyone else to sell the assets to. It's similar to WoW gold, if nobody is buying the gold the price goes way down

Ok but the history of WoW gold farming is rife with labor exploitation, right? All the stuff about Chinese gold farms using dirt-cheap labor to sell fake money for real money, which causes inflation in the in-game economy, requiring people to buy more gold. I mean, you're talking about poor and developing countries when you mention "low cost of living," right?

Shouldn't we avoid this?

MoogleKupo141 posted...

legitimate games

>_>

But seriously, if Ubisoft Quartz is any indication then the major game developers aren't particularly close to that type of implementation where NFT ownership is a core component of the gameplay.

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Hbthebattle posted...

they don't destroy the environment in the process

I meant to address this part too. But please see what I mentioned earlier about Proof of Stake. We are approaching a milestone where blockchain energy consumption is going to scale way back. We as a society should also be striving for milestones where the energy that powers our cities and our computers does come from coal and oil.

I don't know what will happen with BTC, but ETH is headed in the right direction, and there are already NFTs on other chains that are 99.99% more energy efficient than ETH currently is. I wish people would stop pretending like the environmental aspect to the energy use is some kind of permanent problem that isn't been addressed. Or that the only options are to have the situation exactly as it exists right now or have no cryptocurrencies at all. It isn't a binary issue.

dumb as fuck. Buncha stupid shit in the post 2007 world

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Ok but the history of WoW gold farming is rife with labor exploitation, right? All the stuff about Chinese gold farms using dirt-cheap labor to sell fake money for real money, which causes inflation in the in-game economy, requiring people to buy more gold. I mean, you're talking about poor and developing countries when you mention "low cost of living," right?

Shouldn't we avoid this?

I feel like maybe I'm not explaining what I'm trying to convey very well.

Let's take a gacha game for example. These games survive by selling in game currency and perks/advantages to whales. Be it in the form of a premium game currency that must be paid for or loot boxes, or whatever else. Games that people enjoy playing attract these whales, and these whales can be the primary source for that games incomes. (Also ad revenue from non paying players, but I'm trying not to split hairs)

Now take that same game, but instead of having a shop where the whales can buy an infinite amount from the developers, you *have* to play the game to earn the premium token and only a finite amount of tokens get generated as time progresses. This allows the other players to either keep their premium currency that they earned for themselves and use it to make their own character stronger and buy their own advantages, or opt to sell to someone else who wants to pay other players for the same advantage that they previously would have been paying the game directly for. The devs will get a small % of each transaction on the marketplace so they aren't cut out altogether, but the bulk of the purchase goes to the person selling. Axie takes 4.25% for example, so if you sold $500 worth of their premium token you'd get to keep $477.50.

I don't pretend to speak for everyone, but to me this feels like an improvement. Now the people who are playing have the option to profit on their time playing. If someone can make $750 a month playing a game then more power to them. And if that's enough to pay their bills then great. Personally I wouldn't be able to quit my job and live on that, but for the people who can then great. It seems better to do that then another more labor intensive job that would pay the same or worse.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Anyone can catch a Charizard in a Pokemon game. How many people can say they have one of only a few hundred Charizards, and they are all subtly different so no one else has their exact Charizard?

this sort of manufactured scarcity is absolutely horrifying

Kenri posted...

I don't really follow Penny Arcade anymore, but:

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2021/12/08/digits

Surprisingly on point for Penny Arcade

That sounds awful to me, Roblox is like that and kids lose their parents rent money like every week.

So I've played gachas and MMOs and digital TCGs. I've spent money on them! They're all different levels of psychologically manipulative. I enjoy these games so that's not a dig, it's just a fact. And it sounds to me like this just evenly distributes the exploitation among the entire player base?

So I log in to Genshin. I do my grinding (worst part of the game btw) and get my verified token for a 5* character or level boost or whatever. I sell it to a whale who is buying them up. Mihoyo takes a cut. So my grinding (labor) has been directly transformed into value for the company and I get whatever cut the game seems fair. I've turned my gameplay into app economy work. This is Uber for waifus.

And this only works if there are hundreds or thousands of players all doing this and the company skims from all of them. I just don't understand how this is remotely sustainable. Knowing how much normal gachas can bring in I find it completely unrealistic. Each cut would have to be big as what a whale would normally pay or they'd have to have a shitload of transactions to skim multiple times off the same dollar which means more resource trading in a closed economy. Except all the resources have to be unique and scarce because Blockchain for some reason!

I can already point to games and platforms that do this without crypto. Steam marketplace. MTGO and tix. Roblox. What does the crypto actually do besides provide investment from venture capital?

That also seems like a really dumb thing for a gacha to do specifically. I don't spend any money on the one I play (FFRK) so maybe I don't understand whale psychology, but I have to imagine that a big part of the temptation is the fomo of not being able to get the new thing while it's relevant. If they know they can buy it from somebody else if they fail to get it in their pulls that motive seems like it would be undermined!

This seems even more dumb for video games.

I skimmed this topic but other things to consider with how NFTs are fucking abhorrent.

They do not protect a god damn artist. Before artists could file a claim with the Blockchain, I forget the name of it, but they have gotten so many people reporting stolen art that they now say the only way they'll look into it is if they have a court-filed document made which isn't cheap. They effective don't give a fuck about art theft.

And the widespread shortage of video cards make literally everything harder on everyone else in every industry that needs a decent video card, be it just casual gaming with a good PC to literally digital artists.

Fuck NFTs and fuck the complete lack of regulation of them.

Maybe I'm a weirdo but when I'm playing a video game the fucking last thing I'm thinking is "wow this is fun but what would really make it great is if I could somehow use this thing as a vehicle to engage with capitalism."

LordoftheMorons posted...

That also seems like a really dumb thing for a gacha to do specifically. I don't spend any money on the one I play (FFRK) so maybe I don't understand whale psychology, but I have to imagine that a big part of the temptation is the fomo of not being able to get the new thing while it's relevant. If they know they can buy it from somebody else if they fail to get it in their pulls that motive seems like it would be undermined!

theoretically SE would get a cut of the player to player NFT transactions, so theres probably a way for them to structure that in a way that works out to their benefit

like there could be unique nft characters (Cloud in a hat, Cloud on a skateboard, etc.) that are still distributed through getting lucky in the Gacha and its just a super extra rare drop tier for people to gamble on.

They get the upfront gamble money and then take a little off the top of the resales... its basically what you get on Steam with their marketplace for DotA 2 drops and stuff, but now with the blockchain for some reason.

LordoftheMorons posted...

That also seems like a really dumb thing for a gacha to do specifically. I don't spend any money on the one I play (FFRK) so maybe I don't understand whale psychology, but I have to imagine that a big part of the temptation is the fomo of not being able to get the new thing while it's relevant. If they know they can buy it from somebody else if they fail to get it in their pulls that motive seems like it would be undermined!

Well that's where asset appreciation theoretically comes in. Your thing might increase in value over time because it's limited so you better compete with everyone else to get it while it's hot! It sounds abjectly miserable.

Also a big part of FOMO is the potential of a rerun for characters you missed, to get you to continue playing and amassing resources. If these are gameplay pieces, you wouldn't be able to easily reissue Waifu [Series 2] without pissing off these speculators because you would devalue the existing Series 1 Waifus. If anyone is familiar with Magic: The Gathering this is called the Reserve List, it's why Black Lotus sells for thousands of dollars, and this type of speculation I'm describing is hated by the huge majority of the playerbase that isn't directly profiting from it.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

I feel like maybe I'm not explaining what I'm trying to convey very well.

I've noticed that seems to be a common problem when people try to explain why NFTs are good.

Isnt the reserve list pretty unequivocally acknowledged as a mistake by Wizards (even if theyre going to honor the promise)?

Not that I think theyd reprint Black Lotus anyway given how broken it is

LordoftheMorons posted...

Isnt the reserve list pretty unequivocally acknowledged as a mistake by Wizards (even if theyre going to honor the promise)?

Not that I think theyd reprint Black Lotus anyway given how broken it is

Yeah the Reserve List is a bad example in retrospect besides the speculation aspect. WotC does not (directly) profit from the secondary market and they probably COULD gain money from reprinting Black Lotus for Vintage but we have no way of knowing that.

It makes more sense if you know the history of why they even made the promise. In its early years MTG was helped to establish itself as a game where your cards retained some value. When they started reprinting a bunch of rare cards, people started freaking out because suddenly their value wasn't safe. So WotC promised them a list of certain cards that they'd never reprint.

Nowadays they have the clout to say it was a mistake. But any company trying out experimental NFT video games that are being promoted as investments is going to have their reputation on the line and be in a shaky position.

lowkey tho I wanna see the post-apocalyptic future where antiques roadshow is replaced by a modern successor of people bringing in their ancestor's NFT wallets passed down through generations

Forceful_Dragon posted...

"less cool" is subjective, and the prevailing sentiment could change over time. There are also ways of presenting digital assets that are more dynamic than the static image that paper cards are limited to.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'impersonally chucking money at somebody". If you buy a pack of NFT highlights you pay for the pack but then you get to open the pack yourself to find out what you got. I could use some clarification on that point.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Autographed NFTs already exist. They are typically 1 of 1s where the athlete/celebrity will sign like an iPad or something 30 different times to make 30 distinctly different signatures for the purpose of those signatures being incorporated in unique NFTs.

It's subjective, but my point is that most (almost all?) people believe this. Like, digital games have been around for a while, and while it could be the case that people are beginning to value physical collections less, they're not valuing their digital collections proportionally more; they're just the convenient means to play the game, not so much a source of sentimentality. There's something irreplaceable about something physical, moreso about a physical collectable, and I can't see that changing anytime soon.

What I meant by it being impersonal is that, especially with the current incarnation, there's nothing really special to them besides the esoteric certificate of "authenticity". Whatever the media, they're created as a product first, then made into an NFT to inflate the price grossly (which is particularly egregious when it exists already and it's being made into one well after the fact). It's the difference between commissioning artwork or buying a print you found that you like. Of course, this *can* be improved on, like digital signatures, but even that, from my perspective, is kind of tacky. Like an auto-pen signature, though this might just be my own biases.
Forceful_Dragon posted...

There are scummy corners of the NFT space, and they should absolutely be called out as such. Projects get the rug pulled out from under them on a dishearteningly regular basis. That's why I wanted put an emphasis on being cautious and doing research before investing in one project or another.

I don't see how that makes the space as a whole inherently scummy. People make forgeries of Pokemon cards, those illegitimate happenings don't automatically taint the legitimate side of the experience.

I'm not saying you can't or even necessarily shouldn't mention the potential, that doing so legitimizes what we have now, just it seems like even the potential optimal implementation is such a minor (or even lateral) improvement over what we can already do that... why bother? It's kind of begging the question, sure, but I guess I'd rather have this tech, and the potential improvements as far as I can see them, lost than run the risk of their current form carrying on longer.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Anyone can catch a Charizard in a Pokemon game. How many people can say they have one of only a few hundred Charizards, and they are all subtly different so no one else has their exact Charizard?

That is the distinction. And admittedly that might not be important to everyone, but that doesn't make it less valid for the people who do enjoy that verifiable uniqueness.

NFTs don't make anything unique. They just veritably tell you that it's unique... or at least uniquely owned. Pokemon could just add DLC for unique Pokemon that adds a little flag to them that says you have the only copy, or, if you insecure about how easy it is to hack Pokemon, they could add a little list on their website or what the fuck ever. NFT is just the implementation of the system.

and everybody already has a unique spinda

the most that i see games try to make NFTs a thing the more i've come to terms that South Park absolutely nailed it in the post pandemic special.

also i think FD is describing a lot of Eve Online without realizing it.

It's subjective, but my point is that most (almost all?) people believe this. Like, digital games have been around for a while, and while it could be the case that people are beginning to value physical collections less, they're not valuing their digital collections proportionally more; they're just the convenient means to play the game, not so much a source of sentimentality. There's something irreplaceable about something physical, moreso about a physical collectable, and I can't see that changing anytime soon.

yeah, digital stuff just fundamentally isnt the same as physical stuff because theres no like... consistency of existence? Like Ive had my digital version of TF2 for however many years now, but that TF2 file on my computer right now isnt the same TF2 file that was on my PC in high school. The thing I actually own is just the right to download a copy at any point

which is the case with basically all these NFTs too. I remember last year they sold the original David goes to the dentist video as an NFT, but... no they didnt!

Thats not how files work! Unless youre sending me the physical hard drive that they originally uploaded the video from, youre just giving me a copy. Its absurd to pretend that digital things are the same as physical.

MoogleKupo141 posted...

yeah, digital stuff just fundamentally isnt the same as physical stuff because theres no like... consistency of existence? Like Ive had my digital version of TF2 for however many years now, but that TF2 file on my computer right now isnt the same TF2 file that was on my PC in high school. The thing I actually own is just the right to download a copy at any point

which is the case with basically all these NFTs too. I remember last year they sold the original David goes to the dentist video as an NFT, but... no they didnt!

Thats not how files work! Unless youre sending me the physical hard drive that they originally uploaded the video from, youre just giving me a copy. Its absurd to pretend that digital things are the same as physical.

i know people who were paying for "digital certification of ownership of this picture of a dragon" from the artist (i.e., some random user on the forums who was running a 'pet shop' thread) on neopets 15 years ago

that's the context/use case in which you should be thinking about this

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Now take that same game, but instead of having a shop where the whales can buy an infinite amount from the developers, you *have* to play the game to earn the premium token and only a finite amount of tokens get generated as time progresses. This allows the other players to either keep their premium currency that they earned for themselves and use it to make their own character stronger and buy their own advantages, or opt to sell to someone else who wants to pay other players for the same advantage that they previously would have been paying the game directly for. The devs will get a small % of each transaction on the marketplace so they aren't cut out altogether, but the bulk of the purchase goes to the person selling. Axie takes 4.25% for example, so if you sold $500 worth of their premium token you'd get to keep $477.50.

I don't pretend to speak for everyone, but to me this feels like an improvement

okay so to clear up a bit here...
all that's actually describing is two things, with a lot of extra fluff.

1) pay to play model. you play a game to be able to generate in-game currency. this has already gone a step further to pay for your own subscription, which is likely where i'd see this go for any MMO crossover.

2) real money trading.

like when you break down everything said here it's just "play the game, get in-game currency, don't have whale shops to increase scarcity, then real money trading." that's why Eve Online came to mind with this description: it already is pay to play and people have traded real money for ships in that game. games like this end up devolving to just spreadsheets in the end.

in terms of gaming implementations NFTs i can't think of an that aren't just worse versions of things that already exist and things that have already been rejected - waiting for paid mods being NFTs.

GuessMyUserName posted...

this sort of manufactured scarcity is absolutely horrifying

So physical things are cool because they are unique and rare.

But digital things can also be made to be unique and rare, and that's 'absolutely horrifying'?

Am I describing it wrong? Participation is not mandatory. It's an option for people who want that experience.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

That sounds awful to me, Roblox is like that and kids lose their parents rent money like every week.

Not sure how this relates to NFTs. Parents should have safeguards against their children making payments. Kids should be made to understand the concept of currency. And honestly? Kids should not be playing Roblox, it does not seem like a kid-friendly experience.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

I can already point to games and platforms that do this without crypto. Steam marketplace. MTGO and tix. Roblox. What does the crypto actually do besides provide investment from venture capital?

Crypto adds a veneer of security and finality that a game or company by itself cannot provide.

I agree that similar experiences already exist and seem to function just fine without needed to involve blockchain technology.

But if you are using an environmentally friendly blockchain the argument that you are "doing the same thing, only ruining the environment too" stops holding water.

Bitcoin uses 96 terawatt hours / year
Ethereum uses 26 terawatt hours / year
Tezos uses 0.001 terwatt hours / year

Two of these things require energy consumption on par with entire countries. One of those two is going to be changing (supposedly this year). But there are other options that are equally secure from a verification standpoint with negligible carbon footprint.

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

And the widespread shortage of video cards make literally everything harder on everyone else in every industry that needs a decent video card, be it just casual gaming with a good PC to literally digital artists.

Proof of Stake fixes this.

This is also why as entrenched as Bitcoin is becoming in institutions, it needs to be transitioned away from. BTC will never be PoS, and some of the things BTC did right did a lot of good to advance crypto as a whole, but at some point that needs to be addressed. In either case that is a problem with BTC, not NFT.

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NFUN posted...

Whatever the media, they're created as a product first, then made into an NFT to inflate the price grossly (which is particularly egregious when it exists already and it's being made into one well after the fact). It's the difference between commissioning artwork or buying a print you found that you like.

Again I'd direct you to Candy Digital. Their MLB Icon NFTs are digital assets created specifically to be used as NFTs. They released 25,000 packs with 3 NFTs per pack of five varying rarities. They combined video clips and graphics and sound effects to create a pretty slick looking NFT and the high rarities were more detailed with additional features. That is miles beyond the Topps approach of "take the picture of our baseball card and make an NFT of the same static image that we print on the cards".

Candy also did a run of "Suite Futures - Football" NFTs last year where they selected 22 up and coming college football players and did a release of NFTs for them. These NFTs were not as elaborate as the MLB ones described above, but were still more than just a static image. Now that college football players are allowed to monetize from and benefit from their likeness, this was a positive thing for those 22 players.

Physical scarcity ALSO sucks, but its understandable because of the cost of manufacturing.

The only cost of manufacturing NFTs is the energy usage against the environment, which Im fairly sure most of these companies dont care about.

Not to spend the entire time fellating Candy Digital, but Candy has already stopped minting their NFTs on Ethereum and now that they have their own website/platform are minting their new ones on Palm (negligible energy usage). It's something that some companies care about, yes.

And NBA/NFL (via Dapper) mint on Flow which is also negligible.

And new projects are starting to transition towards chains like Solana which is also proof of stake.

I can't wait until "environment" can stop being waved around as the crypto boogeyman -_-

To me, physical objects aren't cool because they're scarce. Rather, the inherent scarcity of a physical object, which is more or less completely unavoidable (setting aside 3D printing an object for now), simply makes the urgency for the demand of a physical object greater. The fact that digital objects aren't scarce is what makes them so amazing! The fact that they aren't scarce is something that differentiates them from real things. Introducing scarcity to digital objects doesn't really make sense, because the idea of physical objects isn't to make them scarce because scarcity is a virtue - rather, scarcity is a flaw with physical objects that increases their demand.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

So physical things are cool because they are unique and rare.

But digital things can also be made to be unique and rare, and that's 'absolutely horrifying'?

Am I describing it wrong? Participation is not mandatory. It's an option for people who want that experience.

where in the world did I say the first sentence

Scarcity is a flaw of physical items, that flaw inherent to being physically manufactured is just what gives it monetary value (not to be confused with, actually being a cool thing) because there is no other option, if you want [thing] you have literally no other choice: there's a certainly supply and demand determines its price. I would be absolutely *thrilled* if there was an infinite supply of physical items so I could actually find things I'd love to get but that's not how reality works. Like fuck imagine a world that wasn't endlessly screwed over by scalpers? That's magical.

Artificially enforcing a limited supply of an infinite digital item just to create a specular market off of is yes, fucking horrifying. You're already free from that shit, why would you try to emulate the flaws of physical?

*edit* and just to note, the flaw of physical scarcity is why I fucking love 3D printing technology because conceptually it's the very reverse: the capability to reproduce physical items so that they're no longer constrained by a limited supply (beyond printing material)

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Participation is not mandatory. It's an option for people who want that experience.

I was on this side of the microtransactions/DLC debate back in the day. It was the wrong side. If companies can make money by cramming it everywhere, they will, to the extent that it will start taking away from the experience if you don't get on board.

I dunno, There will always be garbage games

But the games I play have utilized microtransactions well. Sure, I can complain about not having all the rocket league decals. I can also enjoy hosted servers, new game modes, and an active player base without buying anything

Splitgate is free, being supported by cosmetic microtransactions

Witcher 3 features dlc that would have normally been sold as an expansion pack, etc etc

Super lightly skimmed the topic so this question might have been asked already

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Source? My understanding is that the decentralized nature of the blockchain results in secure redundancy.

Why do games need Blockchain decentralization? That's the part no one answers with NFTs.

Trust is only as strong as the weakest element in the chain. If Ubisoft is selling NFTs to use in games, then Ubisoft is the lowest trust element. You have to trust that Ubisoft will honor your NFT in the game. That's 100% equivalent to traditional centralized loot systems.

NFTs offer 0 good to humanity, and only and solely serve to make rich people richer. They need more people to buy to GET richer though, so that's why they never shut the hell up about it.

foolm0r0n posted...

Why do games need Blockchain decentralization? That's the part no one answers with NFTs.

Need is a strong word. Games don't need to utilize blockchain to confirm ownership of digital assets and as we've discussed similar experiences already exist.

But I don't see where it hurts either. If all your assets are tied to your Ubisoft Account then Ubisoft being hacked could result in a loss of assets. If all your assets for the same game are in a crypto wallet then short of giving them away yourself they are secure. Yes it still relies on Ubisoft supporting the game that the assets are used for, but that's the same either way. Even if the assets aren't tied to NFTs the game can stop being supported by the company.

wg64Z posted...

NFTs offer 0 good to humanity, and only and solely serve to make rich people richer

Disagree.

But that is also why I went into detail about the different NFT sectors earlier. If someone is trying to make you feel hyped about Generic Colorful Panda PFP project then it's probably because they spent more money than they were comfortable with on them and they want the price to go up so they can unload.

UltimaterializerX posted...

Whats this now? How does crypto wreck the planet? My admittedly small understanding is that its a digital currency.

The way it verifies transactions is extremely energy hungry and accomplishes nothing for that energy expenditure other than validating the currency.

The way it verifies transactions is extremely energy hungry and accomplishes nothing for that energy expenditure other than validating the currency.

The way that some blockchains verify transactions is energy hungry. People are increasingly transitioning towards cryptocurrencies that require significantly less energy to validate.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

The way that some blockchains verify transactions is energy hungry. People are increasingly transitioning towards cryptocurrencies that require significantly less energy to validate.

Do you expect these currencies to surpass the energy hungry ones in value? Because if they don't, we haven't really fixed the issue.

uniqueness of digital items is actually cool.

imagine a pvp game like total war: warhammer where you can trade specific units or heroes with your friends between battles. wouldn't it be cool if your unit remembered a history of all of the battles it's been in, all the times it's died, and all of the victories it has achieved?

maybe it'd gain exp or develop unique AI preferences like an amiibo

that would mean your demon hunter wouldn't be the same as anyone else's demon hunter, and they can't just be traded without you knowing. You might even call them non-fungible

you just slap events on a blockchain and they'll stay there. all of this can be implemented on a company's server side already anyway, and i've already covered that on page 1

every complaint i've seen on this page about NFTs also applies to server-based implementations of the ideas they're afraid of. gacha games are butt, no matter the implementation, and i don't think nfts change that

tbh, i think the correct implementation of NFTs for gaming would be some kind of open framework where people can make their own TCGs or whatever, rather than everyone depending on the Tabletop Simulator (or whatever) servers working properly. hopefully on one that's light on energy and therefore fees

banananor posted...

imagine a pvp game like total war: warhammer where you can trade specific units or heroes with your friends between battles. wouldn't it be cool if your unit remembered a history of all of the battles it's been in, all the times it's died, and all of the victories it has achieved?

maybe it'd gain exp or develop unique AI preferences like an amiibo

you are describing the nemesis system from the recent Lord of the Rings games, except with a PvP and trading element

Why does this need blockchain

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Do you expect these currencies to surpass the energy hungry ones in value?

Yes. Maybe not in the USD value of a single token, but certainly in the overall market cap valuation things are trending that direction.