The only difference between an in-game economy where items are transferable and an NFT version is that you can withdraw the items to neutral third-party exchanges and you can see the total inventory of items in the game at all times.

I think there are benefits to having an open economy. With the switch to proof-of-stake blockchains the environmental argument is moot. I don’t see what the big deal is with NFT hate other than a general push back against developers overly-monetizing (but then again, who will pay for servers?) and general hate for crypto.