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What do you think about NFTs?


Tirmata

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Hey everyone, 

 

The world is definitely going to a very interesting place and it seems like gaming will be an important piece of this future. Blockchain, Metaverse, NFTs and so on which will have direct impact on gaming industry and will be targeting people who are playing games on their consoles, mobile, PC and etc. Even the new acquisition of Microsoft, cloud gaming moves by Google, Amazon and Apple are giving huge clues about what may happen. 

 

Here I wanted to hear what everyone's take on NFTs. There is a huge buzz around them at the moment and most of the companies are making a move for them. For instance, Reddit co-founder thinks that in five years 90% of the games will pay you back NFT tokens as reward and it got me thinking: Most of us here are trying to get trophies for the games we are playing and it doesn't seem so unreasonable that these trophies will be changed to NFTs or some tokens. Or imagine getting a unique loot in Nioh or Diablo that is an NFT. I also worry that the gaming won't be about 'fun' anymore and the gamers will be like slaves or money making cows of some systems. 

 

Maybe a bit early to talk about these but if you compare where we were 10 years ago vs. now it doesn't seem so far away where things are going. Do you think these technologies will ruin the gaming industry (or the creativity in it) in the recent future?

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I think NFTs would have more of a use in gaming than all the weird crap I see happening online and in the news.
Letting be re-sell DLC to other people is better than keeping it forever even after quitting a game. 

What would even be better is if the NFTs in one game could work in other games/central hub. I never used it but PlayStation Home would have been perfect for digital collections and trading. 

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So here's my take on NFTs. 

 

They're totally pointless. 

 

Let's say I create an NFT of the winning goal from a World Cup final - a 2 minute video and sell it to someone. They now own that token that shows off said winning goal. They can keep it, trade it, see what happens to its value and so on and so forth. 

 

Except they don't really own anything. When you buy something, physically or digitally, that isn't subscription-based, it's yours. If i buy a car, the car is mine. Other people with have the same car but they can never ever drive my car unless I sell it or they steal it. 

 

If I buy a game off of Steam, it's mine to play. Other people can buy their own digital copy of the game but they can't play my game without hacking into my Steam account or using my computer. 

 

With the footage of the winning goal from the World Cup, anyone with access to a computer can watch the goal. They can currently watch on YouTube, they can watch it on different football sites that archive and show off the footage, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Digitally, it is everywhere, so anyone can watch it. You don't own anything special or unique. It's just a digital fingerprint on the block chain that largely means bugger all to the average Joe who might want to spend thirty seconds of his lunch break watching that goal from that cup final. 

 

Now, the counter argument here is that you will eventually end up in a place in society where people will own these things and no-one else will be able to view them, which is to say that all these sites and social media companies won't host the content. 

 

What about people recording it on their TVs? What about people recording it on their phones? What about the guy who recorded it on the day it happened on his Sky Box and then a week later chucked it in the loft cause he upgraded to a new one? 

 

The stable door has been left open and the horse has bolted for digital ownership of anything that is widely available on multiple mediums at this stage. It's also why I laugh at anyone who deactivates their social media accounts or just doesn't tag themselves in photos to "protect their identity". 

 

The average person owning any smart phone doesn't appreciate how data actually works, how it is stored and how it is manipulated. Equally, that same person isn't going to give two shakes of a lamb's tail about NFTs or digital rights to content. 

 

Anyway, that's my understanding of it all. 

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2 hours ago, TJ_Solo said:

I think NFTs would have more of a use in gaming than all the weird crap I see happening online and in the news.
Letting be re-sell DLC to other people is better than keeping it forever even after quitting a game. 

What would even be better is if the NFTs in one game could work in other games/central hub. I never used it but PlayStation Home would have been perfect for digital collections and trading. 

 

That would be possible without NFTs, though. Would have to program a way for accounts on the PSN/XBL/Steam/etc. servers to resell games to each other. The reason it hasn't happened isn't because it's impossible with the current system, but because no one is interested in programming such functionality into their storefronts, something that isn't magically gonna change if you attach a tech buzzword to it. Same for trading items between games. There's been a number of people who work in the industry going over the various licensing and work pitfalls that would be required to even get something like that working in the first place, never mind the fact that again, it could be set up without NFTs by just setting up the games to read each other's save data or, if they're online, reading accounts from each other's servers.

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1 hour ago, Walt the Dog said:

 

That would be possible without NFTs, though. Would have to program a way for accounts on the PSN/XBL/Steam/etc. servers to resell games to each other. The reason it hasn't happened isn't because it's impossible with the current system, but because no one is interested in programming such functionality into their storefronts, something that isn't magically gonna change if you attach a tech buzzword to it. Same for trading items between games. There's been a number of people who work in the industry going over the various licensing and work pitfalls that would be required to even get something like that working in the first place, never mind the fact that again, it could be set up without NFTs by just setting up the games to read each other's save data or, if they're online, reading accounts from each other's servers.


You’re 100% correct. It would be extremely cheap and easy for developers at game or console level to implement a bog standard, license swapping and selling service/site for games, dlc, or individual content without ever needing to implement block chain/NFT technology, which would only increase cost and complexity exponentially for no gain. But then they would be revealing and establishing a consumer right to own their licenses and the associated content, and they’re either never going to do that, or only do the bare minimum possible if forced to do that.

 

A content selling/swapping api would only need to reference the current license holder and their corresponding license access by title and then turn it off for them and on for someone else. The base technology is extremely simple. The complexity only comes in with getting companies to agree to be part of the exchange. 

 

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The moment they become full force and the norm, I will officially quit modern gaming and just stick to old retro games and certain indies/AA production level games.

 

I'm already pretty upset with where the gaming industry is heading. NFTs will ignite the spark on the bonfire full of fresh gasoline.

Edited by AJ_Radio
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All the organisations care about is making recurring money without effort, and that is what NFTs in their currently technical capacity are trying to do.

 

The most ludicrous part of NFTs and any of these things in general is the concept of ownership. But I think they will inevitably be successful because of how "trophies" work already

 

I mean all of us, we already own all the trophy icons when you install a game, it's just that we haven't "unlocked" them.

But in the same vein as NFTs and things like costume DLC. If there is a one of a kind Dead Or Alive rare bikini outfit as an NFT, every player who fights the owner of the bikini needs to be able to see it.

 

In other words EVERYONE already owns that rare bikini outfit NFT, the files will be on your system somewhere, it's just that only one person can equip it.

Everyone else owns it but can only see it when fighting that particular player.

Hidden files on discs/games, knowingly hidden but they are locked away from you.

 

NFTs are going to be a bit like Trophy pops, but only one person can own that trophy. I

 

think it's a stupid idea, but hey, just look at the achievements/trophy economy this past decade, this website exists because of trophies.

They just a personal record of what you did on a game, stored in some server somewhere maintained by electricity, but you are reading this post only because you care about trophies,

 

So in essence trophies are very similar in concept to NFTs. People inevitably WILL care about them once they become introduced, just like everyone is interested in trophies.

 

And thus we take another step away from prioritising about just making a game that is fun.

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As I understand it, right now most of NFT's are just a place to put your crypto into. What keeps people buying them is the promise they would cost more in the future. Other than that, they hold no value. You can't exchange them back. Many people I've seen call it another bubble that is going to burst soon. The crypto bros that sell thousands of automatically generated garbage arts don't care about the actual art obvioulsy, they just want to make money and use celebrities to promote these images or whatever they make. It's sad every time seeing how Eminem or Aaron Paul or whoever else gets duped into spending thousands of dollars on an image and how all the NFT people celebrate it.

 

Not to say there aren't actual good artists that started selling NFT's to try a new way to bring interest to their stuff. But as already mentioned, there are other negatives like the environmental effects.

 

Maybe in 10 years, if these things still exist, they will be regulated in some way and only run on green energy.

 

As for rare or unique items in games, is anything stopping studios from making them without blockchain?

Edited by Slava
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29 minutes ago, Slava said:

As I understand it, right now most of NFT's are just a place to put your crypto into. What keeps people buying them is the promise they would cost more in the future. Other than that, they hold no value. You can't exchange them back. Many people I've seen call it another bubble that is going to burst soon. The crypto bros that sell thousands of automatically generated garbage arts don't care about the actual art obvioulsy, they just want to make money and use celebrities to promote these images or whatever they make. It's sad every time seeing how Eminem or Aaron Paul or whoever else gets duped into spending thousands of dollars on an image and how all the NFT people celebrate it.

 

Put your crypto into? If by "into" you mean "purchase". Most exchanges use crypto as the currency for buying/trading NFTs. There are some sites that use regular money. What value does an apple or a pear have? Whatever is assigned to it by the demand of the market. Yes, digital goods have 0 value for people that have no interest.  I don't really understand what you are even saying bout celebrities. 

 

 

29 minutes ago, Slava said:

Not to say there aren't actual good artists that started selling NFT's to try a new way to bring interest to their stuff. But as already mentioned, there are other negatives like the environmental effects.

 

NFTs use the blockchain. However the environmental issues you want to discuss is a problem of miners, mostly bitcoin. No one mines NFTs.

 

29 minutes ago, Slava said:

As for rare or unique items in games, is anything stopping studios from making them without blockchain?

 

Yeah, they are called card packs. Fifa, Madden, and 2k are loaded with them.

However, despite costing you 100s of dollars to obtain something rare you'd have no way of selling the rare items with NFT technology. If would just be EA making money off you as normal instead of you being able to make money from your luck/investment.

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It's a no for me. I've never thought good of this NFT thing. First, as enaysoft said, I can see companies putting content into games and locking it behind a paywall, but auctioning it off and making it exclusive to just one user. Artificial rarity isn't a good thing.

Another strike against it is that NFTs can facilitate art theft as seen in the tweet below. Imagine being an artist and putting your work in a digital gallery (like SmugMug). Meanwhile there's this rando on a image copying spree... then they make NFTs of some art, including a few of your works. You got robbed.

 

Here's a tweet from freelance games writer H.K. about this.

 

 

 

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10 hours ago, Walt the Dog said:

 

That would be possible without NFTs, though. Would have to program a way for accounts on the PSN/XBL/Steam/etc. servers to resell games to each other. The reason it hasn't happened isn't because it's impossible with the current system, but because no one is interested in programming such functionality into their storefronts, something that isn't magically gonna change if you attach a tech buzzword to it. Same for trading items between games. There's been a number of people who work in the industry going over the various licensing and work pitfalls that would be required to even get something like that working in the first place, never mind the fact that again, it could be set up without NFTs by just setting up the games to read each other's save data or, if they're online, reading accounts from each other's servers.

 

Possible? Maybe. However, it isn't something that any company has bothered with since the inceptions of digital media. 
Why would a digital storefront want to have competition with its users for the selling of digital items? They would need monetary incentive to offer such a service. Just as ebay doesn't let people sell stuff on that site for free or when a pawnshop buys trade-in items at steep discount them marks them up. 
You can't really expect to be able to reduce a storefront's selling margins and also not pay a selling fee. Selling also comes with the dilemma of pricing or accepting bids. Then I'd wager that publishers would be able to opt-in or out of such a feature or place limitations on the number of "used" licenses that can be sold in comparison to their own new licenses. The technical issues are probably not all that hard but we can't ignore the business aspects or users that will try to abuse the system by looking for ways to manipulate their saves or app data in order to sell a license but still retain access to that content.

Why do have people waste time on that when the blockchain platform exists and performs all that any more? Why try invoking extra security and validation measures when the answer has already been given? NFTs or rather the blockchain answers exactly what you want but for some strange reason people see "NFT" and go completely dumb on the matter. 

 

Quote

It's a no for me. I've never thought good of this NFT thing. First, as enaysoft said, I can see companies putting content into games and locking it behind a paywall, but auctioning it off and making it exclusive to just one user. Artificial rarity isn't a good thing.


You have 0 information on how NFTs will work in games. You can say people are posting stolen content online(this is real world theft not unique to NFTs. We called it copyright infringement 10 years ago) now but do you think that any random person will be creating NFTs within a video game? 

How would it be just for one user when any user can sell the item to other users? One person at a time can use it....MAYBE if being unique means there is only 1 of it. What game company has told you that their NFTs will all be single, unique items? I get the implied argument. It means that everyone won't have equal access at all times. But we have that now in games that use RNG and rarity systems. Even there's no hard cap on an item if the devs set the rarity low enough they can limit how many of that super rare item can ever be found over time. Just look at Genshin Impact or Overwatch. Getting a maxxed out character with all items/skills will likely cost 1000s of dollars and massive luck.

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51 minutes ago, TJ_Solo said:

If by "into" you mean "purchase".

 

Yes.

 

Edit: I should've used the word "invest".

 

51 minutes ago, TJ_Solo said:

What value does an apple or a pear have?

 

Nutritional. 

 

51 minutes ago, TJ_Solo said:

I don't really understand what you are even saying bout celebrities. 

 

NFT creators convince a celebrity to buy a digital monkey telling them it's the future or whatever -> they buy a monkey NFT -> suddenly millions more people learn about those things -> these monkeys gain more interest and new potential buyers. The NFT creators want to keep them relevant because they have hundreds more to sell. The celebrities are being used as promotional tools.

 

51 minutes ago, TJ_Solo said:

NFTs use the blockchain. However the environmental issues you want to discuss is a problem of miners, mostly bitcoin. No one mines NFTs.

 

Apparently, any transaction or other operation using blockchain on Ethereum wastes a lot of energy. So that goes beyond the crypto mining part. There are many articles about that where you can learn the details. 

 

 

Edited by Slava
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Regarding the back and forth about environmental factors - it is common knowledge that blockchain technology is incredibly power hungry (many  commissioned reports commented on this) and as of 2016 around 67% of the world's electricity came from fossil fuels. 

 

The problem with blockchain technology is that there are various elements of it that, as I've commented on above with data, the average person just doesn't understand. This includes the fact that there is a benefit to users on the blockchain in having the biggest and best rigs doing the computations required. 

 

With the biggest and best rigs, comes enhanced electricity requirements and if you're in it to make money, you'll get the cheapest electricity going, irrespective of source. 

 

This discounts the counter argument from Crypto and NFT fans who say that the electrical sources for blockchain work will be green. It doesn't make financial sense for them. 

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I don't really have a horse in this race but NFTs remind me a lot of the American currency - which is fiat currency. It's not backed by gold therefore its theoretical value relies on the agreement and consensus of the populace using it. The American dollar wasn't always like that. It was different before 1971.

 

 

More data: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

 

As for the whole 'blockchain uses a lot of energy' that's the same establishment baloney that guilt-tripped the middle and lower classes from the 90s to 2010s; that we were using too much electricity and carbon-based energy, which led to the whole superficial campaign about turning off switches and reducing electronics usage. When the actual truth was/is that corporations & the military are the biggest, dirtiest guzzlers of electricity consumption and fossil fuels. Which is why I'm not even bothering with this (somewhat odd) obsession of shitting on NFTs (which I don't get the hype about but whatever) cuz if I'm going to expend that kind of energy, I might as well pick better targets about who's really a crook on excess electricity consumption.

 

It is strange. This sustained focus in putting NFTs down. I wonder what's the impetus. Or motive.

Edited by Eraezr
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20 hours ago, Ric said:

I still don't get it...

 

I'm trying to understand why it is so great to buy a little image or audioclip, that is freely available, just so the block chain/metadata can say you own it, but is no different than all the copies of it.

 

Maybe I'm just getting old and this is just to me, what video games and the internet was to my parents in the 90s...

 

 

Neither do I and you have summed up everything perfectly.

 

Even if you don't "own" an image, can't you just cite it if you intend to use it? In any case, when something new that's baffling to me comes along. like a girl selling her farts in a jar, I feel like Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in No Country for Old Men popping black pills with my morning coffee.

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NFTs seem like a fairly natural outcome of modern day capitalism. As someone else pointed out, we've already had meaningless money - money that exists for no reason except to be money, with no real world value behind it - for quite a while, and meaningless ownership, e.g. ownership that serves no purpose except to signify ownership, is not all too different from that. At least crypto has some legitimate usage. NFTs exist for no reason except to create scarcity where there is none.

 

Also, as others have pointed them out, the whole concept is absolutely fucking ridiculous. NFTs are incapable of storing anything but the most basic images inside themselves - cryptopunks are some of the few that are actually stored in the NFT, and they look like shit as a result - everything else is just a link to another site. If that site goes down, or the image in particular gets taken down, you own a link to nothing. This is to say nothing of the rampant art theft. And what do they provide for the hundreds of thousands they sell for? Proof that you own a link to an image? Ridiculous.


Then again, we've been known to kill each other over green paper, so it's not like we're a reasonable sort to begin with.

 

Oh yes, and we're also destroying the environment and causing GPU shortages to ensure that rich people can continue believing they own things. Lovely.

Edited by Darling Baphomet
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NFTs are just digital authenticators. Seriously, there's no big deal and there's not much fuss needed. People always freak out when a new technology comes along, history shows us that. They can have multiple uses, from authenticating smart contracts to serving as keys to some event. Initially they are being used massively to authenticate some images and artwork, or characters in games (Axie Infinity) because it is a new thing that is still adapting to the market. But the uses of this technology could be multiple in the future. and please don't use the argument of excessive use of electricity, Bitcoin has been the target of the same incoherent attacks that have already been proven fallacies, YouTube and Google's own servers use three times more energy than the blockchain, in addition to using renewable energy and to a lesser extent what is wrongly said by the uninformed and ignorant.

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