[Sejan]

So many people, groups and companies are talking about the NFT future of gaming, but it comes with a number of significant problems.
First, let’s acknowledge the reasons that people want NFTs in games. Money and exclusivity. Theoretically, you as the player could find a high quality sword. You could sell it for $1000 and make a ton of money. Sounds great. On top of that, the company wins, too. Typically, the group running the NFT system makes a small commission. The player gets $990, the company gets $10 every time the sword is resold, and the other guy gets a high quality sword. Everyone wins. Exclusivity dramatically increases the value of the stuff so even more winning for everyone.

The problem with these ideas is that they both fail in their own ways when it comes to gaming. Lets consider an NFT weapon. There are three ways that they can do it.

First, everyone assumes that every NFT weapon will be truly unique—a different, unique model for each personal item. Several NFT games strongly suggest this will be the case without outright saying it because it’s virtually impossible to realistically accomplish. Weapons and armor take time and money to make. It simply won’t be worth the company’s effort to make an item that only one person can possess at any given time. It will never be realistic for any company to choose this option.



Second, most NFTs are computer generated from a template of several options. Once they establish the template, they can generate thousands of technically unique options in little to no time. The Ugly Monkey NFT set is a prime example of this.

Technically, they are unique, but the vast majority just look awful and don’t make sense. This could easily be applied to a sword NFT in a game. They could have a dozen different glow colors, a bunch of textures, different sizes, etc. The problem here is that most combinations won’t make sense. If you are unfortunate enough to mint the orange and pink polka dot sword that drips blood while glowing baby blue, then you are stuck with it. No one else wants it, and you have to pay real money to get something that you actually want.



Third, they could differentiate NFT gear by stats, but this might be the worst option. Imagine the random gear you get in games like Diablo.

If you roll high when you mint your NFT, then you are golden. You have some of the best gear available. Maybe you kill the toughest bosses, maybe you sell it for a nice profit. Imagine if you mint a low quality NFT, though. It’s not strong enough for the hardest battles, no one want to buy it, it’s just a useless waste. In the end the stat problems only compound. By definition half of the NFT gear minted is below average and likely worthless.

On top of that, gear in multiplayer games is designed to become obsolete. Every update has to include power creep to keep people coming back for more. Today’s best gear is outdated in 3-6 months as additional content is released. In games like WoW, the best gear in a previous expansion is outclassed by normal gear of the current content within just a few hours. No matter how great and valuable your NFT is right now, it is guaranteed to be outclassed by the end of the year.


NFTs are little more than another way for game companies to go after whales. It offers little to nothing to the consumer and the vast majority of gaming NFTs will never be worth anything. On top of that, they will all lose their value as games inevitably lose their audiences.

 

[lock2k]

NFTs are 'tarded

 

[Saruhashi]

I think ultimately the way game developers deal with NFTs is going to come down to the individual choice of consumers.

If people are willing to spend 10, 20 or even 100 bucks on some in-game item that's on them. If developers see that there is some demand for this then I think it's fair enough to go for it.

However, if I feel stuff like that could ruin a game then I would avoid these kinds of games.

I would look at a game like FIFA and think of it as almost a completely different industry and community. It's like that 60 bucks for the base game is just like buying your console and then all the stupid item packs etc are like games you buy for your console.

It's a COMPLETELY different situation to someone who will buy Elden Ring and play it, finish it, move on to something else.

I could definitely see a game like Fortnite allowing players to buy and sell skins etc from each other. You could imagine them bringing out new skins in limited numbers and allowing the marketplace value of those to go up to ridiculous levels.

At the end of the day though all this comes down to the kind of people who are actually willing to blow money on this stuff.

Gaming is a weird space. In my opinion. Like if I go to the local mall and there's a guy there selling The Last of Us 2 t-shirts for 500 bucks a pop I'd just think "LOL those are shit" and go about my day. Don't really care if other people are buying them. Even if I saw some guy buying one and then he is swarmed by women eager to offer this man some pussy I'd still think a 500 buck TLOU2 tshirt is shit.

The main grumble I would have is if a game is aggressively trying to upsell me all the time.
I don't necessarily want to have to see or decline constant attempts to sell me packs and skins and whatever shit. One or two ads a week? Fine. Offering me DLC every few months? OK.

To be honest though I almost never play any kind of online game. I often play multiplayer but it is always just local multiplayer, usually with the wife. So my perspective may be skewed there.

I personally think NFTs are bloody stupid and people paying serious money for them are dumb.

This is basically how I see the people and gaming outlets angrily complaining about NFTs just now though:

 

[Zefah]

I don't believe NFTs are a valid concept.

Artificially creating scarcity where it does not need to exist is the opposite of generating real value.

 

[gameragodzilla]

I don't believe NFTs are a valid concept.

Artificially creating scarcity where it does not need to exist is the opposite of generating real value.

I still don't see the benefit it has even to the end user, which is why I find it odd that so many people would spend so much money for them. Unless it's meant to be an investment that they sell later for a profit, which would make some sense, but then if there's nobody who's genuinely buying, then it's just a massive speculation bubble that will eventually pop.

 

[Sejan]

I don't believe NFTs are a valid concept.

Artificially creating scarcity where it does not need to exist is the opposite of generating real value.

Block chain and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are a perfectly valid concept. Digital scarcity has plenty of great potential uses, but I can’t think of anything that would benefit gaming outside of allowing people to spend bitcoin to buy their next game.

Digital scarcity could be used to provide genuinely secure identification for instance. It’s the only possible way to realistically secure digital voting.

Unfortunately, the biggest movers in the space right now are those that are selling ugly monkey pictures and the like.

Our current uses for NFTs are similar in concept to inventing the airplane and only ever using it to fly airplane advertisements over the desert. Techincially, they are using the technology, but it’s not being used anywhere near to its potential applications.

 

[Grinchy]

I think back to the early days of item trading in Team Fortress 2. There was some promotion Apple did where people could get a code to redeem a pair of in-game Apple earbuds you could put on your character.

Because it was so limited, once trading became huge and items started being sold for real money, scarce items like that became very valuable. Suddenly people had an item on their character worth thousands of real world dollars.

Another item is some white cowboy hat in Rocket League. Very scarce, so it's worth a lot. These aren't even "NFTs" but I am kinda on the fence on whether I am upset by the idea of limited run unique gaming cosmetics or items that most people can't attain. I never got mad at someone wearing the earbuds in TF2 or the white cowboy hat in Rocket League. If someone could blow thousands of dollars in such an idiotic way, so be it. Maybe it'd be cool for a player in Warzone to be one of the few to have a gun skin or something.

 

[lock2k]

The main benefit thaf digital has over physical is that you can copy the shit out of it and not rely on physical stuff. But humans are morons and are trying to bring the "benefit" of scarcity to digital stuff. lmao

 

[Zefah]

Block chain and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are a perfectly valid concept. Digital scarcity has plenty of great potential uses, but I can’t think of anything that would benefit gaming outside of allowing people to spend bitcoin to buy their next game.

Digital scarcity could be used to provide genuinely secure identification for instance. It’s the only possible way to realistically secure digital voting.

Unfortunately, the biggest movers in the space right now are those that are selling ugly monkey pictures and the like.

Our current uses for NFTs are similar in concept to inventing the airplane and only ever using it to fly airplane advertisements over the desert. Techincially, they are using the technology, but it’s not being used anywhere near to its potential applications.

I can see the argument for crypto as a form of currency or way to validate digital transactions, etc.. It's the idea of attaching NFTs to digital assets like images, etc. is what is bonkers to me.

 

[Relativ9]

The one and only way I could ever see NFTs being beneficial to a game and it's fanbase would be for user generated content. This would be the only opportunity for a truly free market to evolve. As soon as developers or an AI tooled but them have to make the content it looses any and all benefit.

 

[Sejan]

I can see the argument for crypto as a form of currency or way to validate digital transactions, etc.. It's the idea of attaching NFTs to digital assets like images, etc. is what is bonkers to me.

That’s exactly what I’m saying. Blockchain and by extension NFTs are a great technology. Unfortunately, the best use that people came up it’s (aside from currency) is attaching it to pictures of batch made ugly monkeys. Note that you don’t own the picture. You own a token connected to the picture. It’s ludicrous.

 

[gameragodzilla]

That’s exactly what I’m saying. Blockchain and by extension NFTs are a great technology. Unfortunately, the best use that people came up it’s (aside from currency) is attaching it to pictures of batch made ugly monkeys. Note that you don’t own the picture. You own a token connected to the picture. It’s ludicrous.

Well it's the easiest way to make money using the technology, so that's what people are using it for. The thing I still don't get is why people pay money for it. What benefit does anyone get from owning that token? Just a digital signature saying some piece of digital art is theirs? What's the difference in practical usage between owning that token and spending ungodly amounts of money on it and just downloading a copy paste picture of it for free?

 

[lock2k]

Well it's the easiest way to make money using the technology, so that's what people are using it for. The thing I still don't get is why people pay money for it. What benefit does anyone get from owning that token? Just a digital signature saying some piece of digital art is theirs? What's the difference in practical usage between owning that token and spending ungodly amounts of money on it and just downloading a copy paste picture of it for free?

Humans were a mistake

 

[Musky_Cheese]

I won’t even buy the cat ears in Infinite. Good luck getting me to buy your one of a kind horse armor.

 

[Allnamestakenlol]

I really miss the days when devs/pubs were content to make a great game and have it sell well.

 

[Soodanim]

I think ultimately the way game developers deal with NFTs is going to come down to the individual choice of consumers.

If people are willing to spend 10, 20 or even 100 bucks on some in-game item that's on them. If developers see that there is some demand for this then I think it's fair enough to go for it.

However, if I feel stuff like that could ruin a game then I would avoid these kinds of games.

I would look at a game like FIFA and think of it as almost a completely different industry and community. It's like that 60 bucks for the base game is just like buying your console and then all the stupid item packs etc are like games you buy for your console.

It's a COMPLETELY different situation to someone who will buy Elden Ring and play it, finish it, move on to something else.

I could definitely see a game like Fortnite allowing players to buy and sell skins etc from each other. You could imagine them bringing out new skins in limited numbers and allowing the marketplace value of those to go up to ridiculous levels.

At the end of the day though all this comes down to the kind of people who are actually willing to blow money on this stuff.

Gaming is a weird space. In my opinion. Like if I go to the local mall and there's a guy there selling The Last of Us 2 t-shirts for 500 bucks a pop I'd just think "LOL those are shit" and go about my day. Don't really care if other people are buying them. Even if I saw some guy buying one and then he is swarmed by women eager to offer this man some pussy I'd still think a 500 buck TLOU2 tshirt is shit.

The main grumble I would have is if a game is aggressively trying to upsell me all the time.
I don't necessarily want to have to see or decline constant attempts to sell me packs and skins and whatever shit. One or two ads a week? Fine. Offering me DLC every few months? OK.

To be honest though I almost never play any kind of online game. I often play multiplayer but it is always just local multiplayer, usually with the wife. So my perspective may be skewed there.

I personally think NFTs are bloody stupid and people paying serious money for them are dumb.

This is basically how I see the people and gaming outlets angrily complaining about NFTs just now though:

I will say that the massive backlash could stop it before it really gets going, which will be good in the long run. But if it eventually finds its way into games I actually play, I’ll ignore it just like I do everything else.

 

[Kadayi]

As I said in another thread the underlying tech aspects of BlockChain & NFTs are sound for professional Certification or Proof of Attendance within say a company/business/institution perspective (think of it as a personal resume/portfolio) wherein the information can be tied to s specific digital account, but not sold. However, within games, it's just simply a way in which to combat item duping, and has no value outside that. If you are really lucky you might unlock some super rare item some Whale might buy off of you, but unless you can somehow magically translate that into actual cash versus in-game currency, WGAF.

Also, the bi-product of this is more and more ppl will find their personal accounts hacked, so my advice is password protect and 2-Factor that shit, which tbh is something people should be doing already in this day and age.