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Notes on Epic Games

23 points by aml183 6y ago

Farbklex 6y ago
The part about digital goods (read as: in game purchases) being potentially, easily transferable in the future stuck out to me so I looked it up in the original article: "However, an increasingly large portion of the gaming economy now runs on virtual goods. The ability to take items, outfits, and more from one game to another will obviously increase the price a player is willing to pay on these goods. And if a user ever wanted to jump across digital worlds (as is portrayed in Ready Player One), it helps if all worlds use the same “physics” and “logic”." This makes sense, but boy, this will never happen. As far as I am aware, songs from Guitar Hero and Just Dance aren't transferable from game to game. Same is true for players in Fifa Ultimate Team, anything you buy in Call of Duty, Battlefield and basically any game. In many cases, the engines were the same between games. I just don't see transferable in-game purchases happen. Valve and their marketplace system at least give players the ability to sell their items for funds, all without having to use a specific game engine.
- swivelmaster 6y ago
  Yeah, transferrable digital goods are 99% of the pitch for game-centric blockchain infrastructure companies, and it's an absolutely ridiculous claim because while it's TECHNICALLY possible, the incentives for developers to actually make it viable simply do not exist. Making any item interoperable between games reduces its value in any single game, or at the very least makes the value of any item unclear, which means that it's just as likely to add negative value to the game economy and make things worse for any developer that implements it.
  - aml183 6y ago
    I agree, but Tim Sweeney’s goal is to create the Metaverse. If done, though unlikely, it would solve these issues. Go to essay #6 to see Matt and Jacob’s argument.
alanfalcon 6y ago
https://hackmd.io/@XR/tim-metaverse https://hackmd.io/@XR/tim-metaverse

23 points by aml183 6y ago

The part about digital goods (read as: in game purchases) being potentially, easily transferable in the future stuck out to me so I looked it up in the original article: "However, an increasingly large portion of the gaming economy now runs on virtual goods. The ability to take items, outfits, and more from one game to another will obviously increase the price a player is willing to pay on these goods. And if a user ever wanted to jump across digital worlds (as is portrayed in Ready Player One), it helps if all worlds use the same “physics” and “logic”." This makes sense, but boy, this will never happen. As far as I am aware, songs from Guitar Hero and Just Dance aren't transferable from game to game. Same is true for players in Fifa Ultimate Team, anything you buy in Call of Duty, Battlefield and basically any game. In many cases, the engines were the same between games. I just don't see transferable in-game purchases happen. Valve and their marketplace system at least give players the ability to sell their items for funds, all without having to use a specific game engine.

swivelmaster 6y ago
Yeah, transferrable digital goods are 99% of the pitch for game-centric blockchain infrastructure companies, and it's an absolutely ridiculous claim because while it's TECHNICALLY possible, the incentives for developers to actually make it viable simply do not exist. Making any item interoperable between games reduces its value in any single game, or at the very least makes the value of any item unclear, which means that it's just as likely to add negative value to the game economy and make things worse for any developer that implements it.
- aml183 6y ago
  I agree, but Tim Sweeney’s goal is to create the Metaverse. If done, though unlikely, it would solve these issues. Go to essay #6 to see Matt and Jacob’s argument.

alanfalcon 6y ago

https://hackmd.io/@XR/tim-metaverse https://hackmd.io/@XR/tim-metaverse