1. Other gaming platforms could add support to interface with it.
2. It's not the same. With these you actually own the NFT and won't lose it if game itself goes away and they stop supporting it. These virtual items will last forever.
3. The NFT part of games isn't about fun. The technology behind a game isn't just what makes the game fun. A game needing to be good will always be a problem.
1. Why should they? The selling point of supporting NFTs is selling NFTs. Also the "NFT support" shown in the article literally involves the company producing its own art assets based on the NFTs. Even if the sprites could be broken down to the same generic pieces as the randomly generated NFTs this would mean repeating the effort for every NFT collection. The motivation to do this for apes is clear (if you want to rope in the crypto crowd, apes are a good starting point) but you have to justify this level of effort for every single collection, plus every non-generic individual NFT.
2. The €10 I had left on my DVD rental place's customer card will also last forever but much like NFTs tied to the latest vaporware web3 game it's not worth anything because nobody else sees any value in it now that the rental place is gone.
3. The NFT part of games isn't about the game then. It's not contributing anything to the enjoyment of the game. It's just facilitating conspicious consumption to demonstrate real-life financial status in the game. Much like micro transactions, this is making the game less enjoyable just to milk some players (rarely those actually wealthy, more often those with worse impulse control or using other people's money, e.g. kids and addicts) for more cash.
Because they may want to provide user value by being a centralized place where you can manage all of your virtual items and NFTs are a component of that.
it's not worth anything because nobody else sees any value in it now that the rental place is gone.
These items can be reused by other applications to give them a new life. Even in your DVD store example a competing DVD store or streaming service could offer you a sign up bonus or discount if you could prove you had €5 or more credit with the store that went out of business.
Much like micro transactions, this is making the game less enjoyable just to milk some players
I see it more as the opposite. Letting someone sell the skins they bought to someone else is better for the consumer and isn't just milking them compared to games like Fortnite where nothing can be sold off.
Even in your DVD store example a competing DVD store or streaming service could offer you a sign up bonus or discount if you could prove you had €5 or more credit with the store that went out of business.
This makes no sense at all, why should a company give me some credit based on credit I had with another company that is even out of business? I could see it working if the two companies are competitors, but if one of the two is out of business it isn't a competitor anymore.
why should a company give me some credit based on credit I had with another company that is even out of business?
Because the more credit that person had with the other business the more valuable the customer would be to have.
but if one of the two is out of business it isn't a competitor anymore.
There are still other competitors who will be fighting over all of the customers looking for a new a company to replace the one that went out of business.
There are still other competitors who will be fighting over all of the customers looking for a new a company to replace the one that went out of business.
Then you don't need to prove prior credit with another company: the competing companies could just offer some free credit to new customers, as companies indeed already commonly do.
It's not the same. With these you actually own the NFT and won't lose it if game itself goes away and they stop supporting it. These virtual items will last forever.
If the game goes away you have a token saying you own something that doesn't do anything any more. This is like totaling a brand new Lamborghini and going "it's fine, I still have the keys in my pocket".
Even if the game doesn't exist that doesn't mean the value of all items drops to 0. Someone could come along later and setup a private server that lets you import all the items you had from the original game. Someone could also develop an application where you can view these items which you may have sentimental value for.
Baldurs Gate didn't preserve the scarcity of items. You can duplicate the export and share that with many different people. Items are no longer a unique thing that exists in the world.
Items are no longer a unique thing that exists in the world.
Given that anyone can apparently throw up their own instances of the game server and you can freely exchange NFTs generated by each that would seem to be a given from the start? Or how do you decide which copy of the dagger+1 NFT is legit of both where generated by different instances of the game?
Right, so the item is tied to a specific server, the functionality of the item is implemented by that specific server, and that server only trusts NFTs that it issued itself.
What value is the NFT adding exactly?
I'm not saying that implementing an item trading system via NFTs isn't a way to do it. Just that you seem to be ascribing a whole lot of importance to something that's basically just a technical detail.
Video games can already let you trade items between each other, export assets outside of the game to use elsewhere, exchange real money for things etc etc. if the developers want to let you do that.
This is not a technical problem,
this is a "I want games that do this, but nobody building games wants their games to do this" problem.
Just that you seem to be ascribing a whole lot of importance to something that's basically just a technical detail.
There are implications of technical details. Take for example Valorant. Once Riot is done supporting the game you will never be able to play it again because the multiplayer uses centralized servers operated by Riot. To everyday users they don't really care and arguably they get a better, more consistent experience. But there are users who do care about the ability to be able to play the game when Riot no longer wants to operate the servers for it.
Video games can already let you trade items between each other
Not really. If I wanted to trade a shulker box of totems on a Minecraft server for a CSGO skin without being scammed there is no way to do it. Games don't naively support it. If all the items are on Steam, Steam lets you trade items between users. But now you are relying on a centralized platform to facilitate this. NFTs offer a solution that is trustless and doesn't give even more power to Valve's monopoly.
This is not a technical problem, this is a "I want games that do this, but nobody building games wants their games to do this" problem.
Now that NFTs exist a lot of the technical problems have already been slowed. Games aren't doing this because there aren't any big benefits to doing it. Games would be weakening their monopoly by giving power to the users by letting them use NFTs instead of just their own item system.
Comments
I like crypto and I see value in some platforms, but this is just a BS cash grab.
There are several issues why this is stupid:
1. You can't transfer the NFTs to different gaming platforms.
2. This is achievable without NFTs. It has been for years.
3. The gaming studios focused on NFTs and blockchain tend to ignore the core of gaming: how fun is the game?
Atari was bought by a con artist, there's no point in talking about Atari at all, it's not a serious company.
1. Other gaming platforms could add support to interface with it.
2. It's not the same. With these you actually own the NFT and won't lose it if game itself goes away and they stop supporting it. These virtual items will last forever.
3. The NFT part of games isn't about fun. The technology behind a game isn't just what makes the game fun. A game needing to be good will always be a problem.
1. Why should they? The selling point of supporting NFTs is selling NFTs. Also the "NFT support" shown in the article literally involves the company producing its own art assets based on the NFTs. Even if the sprites could be broken down to the same generic pieces as the randomly generated NFTs this would mean repeating the effort for every NFT collection. The motivation to do this for apes is clear (if you want to rope in the crypto crowd, apes are a good starting point) but you have to justify this level of effort for every single collection, plus every non-generic individual NFT.
2. The €10 I had left on my DVD rental place's customer card will also last forever but much like NFTs tied to the latest vaporware web3 game it's not worth anything because nobody else sees any value in it now that the rental place is gone.
3. The NFT part of games isn't about the game then. It's not contributing anything to the enjoyment of the game. It's just facilitating conspicious consumption to demonstrate real-life financial status in the game. Much like micro transactions, this is making the game less enjoyable just to milk some players (rarely those actually wealthy, more often those with worse impulse control or using other people's money, e.g. kids and addicts) for more cash.
Because they may want to provide user value by being a centralized place where you can manage all of your virtual items and NFTs are a component of that.
These items can be reused by other applications to give them a new life. Even in your DVD store example a competing DVD store or streaming service could offer you a sign up bonus or discount if you could prove you had €5 or more credit with the store that went out of business.
I see it more as the opposite. Letting someone sell the skins they bought to someone else is better for the consumer and isn't just milking them compared to games like Fortnite where nothing can be sold off.
This makes no sense at all, why should a company give me some credit based on credit I had with another company that is even out of business? I could see it working if the two companies are competitors, but if one of the two is out of business it isn't a competitor anymore.
Because the more credit that person had with the other business the more valuable the customer would be to have.
There are still other competitors who will be fighting over all of the customers looking for a new a company to replace the one that went out of business.
Then you don't need to prove prior credit with another company: the competing companies could just offer some free credit to new customers, as companies indeed already commonly do.
If the game goes away you have a token saying you own something that doesn't do anything any more. This is like totaling a brand new Lamborghini and going "it's fine, I still have the keys in my pocket".
Even if the game doesn't exist that doesn't mean the value of all items drops to 0. Someone could come along later and setup a private server that lets you import all the items you had from the original game. Someone could also develop an application where you can view these items which you may have sentimental value for.
And you need NFTs for either of those why? I could export a character with items from Baldurs Gate decades ago.
Baldurs Gate didn't preserve the scarcity of items. You can duplicate the export and share that with many different people. Items are no longer a unique thing that exists in the world.
Given that anyone can apparently throw up their own instances of the game server and you can freely exchange NFTs generated by each that would seem to be a given from the start? Or how do you decide which copy of the dagger+1 NFT is legit of both where generated by different instances of the game?
The items would be instance specific. Servers can only trust items that they themselves issued.
Right, so the item is tied to a specific server, the functionality of the item is implemented by that specific server, and that server only trusts NFTs that it issued itself.
What value is the NFT adding exactly?
I'm not saying that implementing an item trading system via NFTs isn't a way to do it. Just that you seem to be ascribing a whole lot of importance to something that's basically just a technical detail.
Video games can already let you trade items between each other, export assets outside of the game to use elsewhere, exchange real money for things etc etc. if the developers want to let you do that.
This is not a technical problem, this is a "I want games that do this, but nobody building games wants their games to do this" problem.
That you actually own the item.
There are implications of technical details. Take for example Valorant. Once Riot is done supporting the game you will never be able to play it again because the multiplayer uses centralized servers operated by Riot. To everyday users they don't really care and arguably they get a better, more consistent experience. But there are users who do care about the ability to be able to play the game when Riot no longer wants to operate the servers for it.
Not really. If I wanted to trade a shulker box of totems on a Minecraft server for a CSGO skin without being scammed there is no way to do it. Games don't naively support it. If all the items are on Steam, Steam lets you trade items between users. But now you are relying on a centralized platform to facilitate this. NFTs offer a solution that is trustless and doesn't give even more power to Valve's monopoly.
Now that NFTs exist a lot of the technical problems have already been slowed. Games aren't doing this because there aren't any big benefits to doing it. Games would be weakening their monopoly by giving power to the users by letting them use NFTs instead of just their own item system.
That's a lot of "maybe someday" type of wishful thinking. What will actually happen is the game will go poof and you will be left with nothing.
It really isn't if games are following a standard for their NFT. You at least can use it as a generic item.
Yes but having them as NFTs makes it harder to do that, not easier.
Why would they?
Because they believe it will provide user value. If it doesn't then they won't.