5 ms·

What about NFTs make a compelling argument that they are "the next platform evolution"? Why should I want NFTs in a game?

capableweb 5y ago
I'm not a fan of "collectibles" or "cosmetic items" or whatever they are called these days in games, but even I can see the use case where you can gain those in-game and then manage them outside of the game, trade them with other players, and maybe bring them with you to the next version of the game or even to another game. NFTs enable this without having to build any of the infrastructure to support it.
- itsoktocry 5y ago
  >even I can see the use case where you can gain those in-game and then manage them outside of the game, trade them with other players, and maybe bring them with you to the next version of the game or even to another game. All of this sounds completely dependent on the game designers, which is the opposite of decentralized, no? What requires NFTs? You can't just "bring" something into another game.
  - meowface 5y ago
    >What requires NFTs? You can't just "bring" something into another game. Isn't that kind of the point of NFTs? With an NFT, you hypothetically could bring something into another game. You'd need different developers to agree to recognize certain NFTs, though. I think the better question to ask is the reverse: what requires bringing things into different games? Historically, nothing. This doesn't seem to be a thing most developers want. And if they don't want that, there wouldn't be a point to implementing NFTs, since they're already keeping things centralized. So it's really just a philosophical discussion about the idea of things being tradable between and outside of particular games, and the potential merits of that, rather than a technical discussion about NFTs.
    - hakfoo 5y ago
      For this to be useful, you'd need an infrastructure-- standard APIs and formats for interchange. I'm picturing the initial sell as like those old Pokemon events or trading via the link cable, but you could buy a Trabant P601 from Gran Turismo, Zhongli from Genshin Impact, and Messi from FIFA21 to drop into the game too. How do you make use of that sort of open-ended diversity without ruining gameplay? You'd either be limited to trivial uses (avatars/skins or randomizations) or you'd have a huge vector for feeding in game-breaking items and characters. The alternative is a closed network-- only allowing a small selection of pre-vetted NFTs that won't break the game, which adds very little value over something like the Skylanders/Infinity/Amiibo concept that already exists, except you don't get a cool figure too.
  - janstice 5y ago
    Doesn’t require NFTs, but NFTs could solve the problem of digital trading in untrustworthy markets - like game codes and event tickets. (Introduce other problems too, like getting hijacked by people who are overexcited at the thought of fractionalised links to jpgs…).
    - MystK 5y ago
      Does it really solve for digital trading in untrustworthy markets though? How would the smart contract verify that the event ticket or game code was legitimate? If it was up to the buyer, they could just lie.
      - IanCal 5y ago
        I'm not sure I understand the question - the ticket would be on the blockchain and therefore easily verifiable.
  - andreilys 5y ago
    The point of NFT's is that, yes, you could bring something into another game (As long as the devs allow porting of NFT goods into their game). As an example, if someone has a Runescape party hat, they could equip that on their world of warcraft character.
    - irskep 5y ago
      This still makes absolutely no sense to me. The developer of Runescape is not going to collaborate with the developer of Warcraft to give them a copy of the model, figure out how the stats translate, put the textures in the right format, etc. Games use completely different equations for damage, defense, speed, etc. It's 100% magical thinking. Even if you did have game items transferring across totally unrelated games, you'd _want_ a centralized database to make bug fixes possible. After all, games as a class of programs aren't known for being bug-free.
      - knownjorbist 5y ago
        Yes, there is no metadata standard at the moment. But if that existed, the Runescape and Warcraft developers would not have to coordinate at all.
        jameshart 5y ago
        So.... this party hat asset comes with a permissive license that lets world of warcraft distribute it from their servers down to players' clients, right? So that the people who are playing on the same server as the owner of this NFT can see the hat, being worn by that player, in their game? But then if it's licensed that freely, what's to stop world of warcraft just using it in general? Put it on a bunch of NPCs. Let any player put it on their own character. Or does the license have some sort of restrictions - 'you may only use this asset as a hat on the player character of the person who owns this NFT'? How's that enforced? Seriously, WHY would WoW go to the trouble of supporting this nonsense?
        andreilys 5y ago
  - dropnerd 5y ago
    builders around loot project are exploring this (disclaimer: i own a few of their nfts) there are primitive games that are building on top of other projects' nfts because it's a way to secure an initial audience.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      Ok, but couldn't they build off the content of those NFTs, just without bothering to actually care about the NFTs? I don't get why this artificial restriction-by-convention is appealing.
      - dropnerd 5y ago
        there could be licensing restrictions. (i think we can do better, but it's a path.) in the absence of licensing restrictions, the nft owners are incentivized to prefer projects that provide utility for their nfts.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        > there could be licensing restrictions. Ok, but the supposed benefit was to a game's prospective competition. Why in the hell would the game developer want to license content created for their game to be used in a competitor's game? > in the absence of licensing restrictions, the nft owners are incentivized to prefer projects that provide utility for their nfts. And everyone who doesn't have those NFTs have no such incentive. Even if I own game X's NFTs, there is no disincentive for me to play game Y that straight up uses game Z's NFTs for free. Or hell, even if it used game X's. I might want to play with an item I don't have in game X, after all. If a game came out tomorrow that reused TF2's hats and shit, do you really think anyone would consider the fact that they have hats in their TF2 account a disincentive to play the new game? This is like that part in HGttG[0] where the Golgafrinchans decided leaves were currency and burnt down the forests to ensure their scarcity. I have no idea why you people can't see how mad you all are. [0] In case anyone doesn't know: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.
- joe_guy 5y ago
  if you're trading them, then aren't they fungible?
  - meowface 5y ago
    They aren't. You're trading one non-fungible thing for a different non-fungible thing. Alternatively, a game could also offer SFTs (semi-fungible tokens, as described in ERC-1155 [1]), in which case players could trade multiple identical versions of some indivisible asset. Something like a skin or a hat would be an SFT unless only one copy of it existed (i.e. only one player could ever use that skin or hat at any time). [1] https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1155 https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1155
  - elevenoh 5y ago
    fungible = mutually interchangeable NFTs = typically (and at a low level arguably always) non mutually interchangeable, aka unique.
  - birdyrooster 5y ago
    They would be unique items that are identifiable from other items. (e.g. different hashes, even if they represent the same item in game) “There are many like it, but this one is mine.”
  - djur 5y ago
    Not any more so than car titles are fungible. If I give you $10k cash and you give me $10k cash we end up in exactly the same material position, despite owning technically different objects (dollar bills) than before. That's because the dollar bills are fungible tokens representing a value. But if we trade titles for cars worth $10k each, we are both now in a different material position since we own different cars now. (The problem with NFTs in this analogy is that transferring car titles has legal weight, while selling an NFT probably doesn't without additional contractual language.)
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  I don’t see companies letting their intellectual property float out onto a public blockchain to be used by any other game. Unless they have total control over how that IP is used, I don’t see any publishers funding games like this. I think it would even undermine their copyright if they didn’t enforce these limitations. Think about it, a much smaller fish could offer a very similar game that uses the inventories of NFTs from GameA and become a serious threat to the business of GameA overnight by sniping the player base with the promise of keeping their inventory.
  - 1ark 5y ago
    Have you looked? https://rabbidstoken.ubisoft.com/ https://rabbidstoken.ubisoft.com/
    - birdyrooster 5y ago
      What game are these assets used in?
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  A very boring database also supports this.
- somehnacct3757 5y ago
  Game devs would never do this. Even if they're bullish on NFTs. The whole point of a sequel or spin-off is to hit the reset button on your game economy and shake down big spenders once more. It is also a design challenge. One of the design benefits of a new game is you can cancel, rework, or nerf strategies that players spent money on in the previous game.
  - birdyrooster 5y ago
    This could still work with NFTs though, for example MTG has different formats of their game which have restrictions about which releases of cards are eligible for use, and some cards are banned from use in any format because they are too overpowered. Similarly, we could have games which ban NFTs which are overpowered turning them into collectibles with no in-game use. This isn't the reason NFTs aren't workable, because even if you could overcome the regulatory burdens, the bigger reason is control of IP. If other games can consume the NFTs from my game, then they can steal my player base by essentially forking the game with the promise of maintaining player inventories. Why would a publisher want this?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- rank0 5y ago
  I keep seeing this argument and it makes ZERO sense. You still need to build infrastructure to read the NFT and incorporate it into your game. You can already do this without a blockchain and a global network of hyper redundant miners/validators.
- antifa 5y ago
  > NFTs enable this without having to build any of the infrastructure to support it. So I could build this infrastructure on mongodb/dynamodb in a single weekend, offer it without $$$ minting/gas fees, still get higher margins, point out my solution is green, and offer my simpler solution to game devs, and everyone will be better off.
xtiansimon 5y ago
I was thinking the same thing. I found this article about a game called Axie Infinity. “ NFT games such as "Axie Infinity" and "NBA Top Shot" let people earn money by grooming and selling animal characters called Axies, which players treat as digital pets. […] They will then groom these Axies, team up with their friends and make Axies do battle like Pokemon, and build so-called "virtual kingdoms."“ In any other game the characters you develop are essentially the _same_ as any other character played by any other player—maybe with the exception of the character name which you could personalize. I can appreciate the notion that you can develop a character which can be uniquely identified. Without devolving into a philosophical argument about games simulating reality, I’m thinking you can see NFTs as a fundamental change, because NFTs offer a unique player experience. If Eve Online creates a unique experience by allowing players to create corporations, then NFT character is a unique experience at the individual player level. Unique digital assets are compelling like baseball cards https://www.techtimes.com/articles/263796/20210805/how-do-nft-games-work.htm https://www.techtimes.com/articles/263796/20210805/how-do-nf...

capableweb 5y ago

I'm not a fan of "collectibles" or "cosmetic items" or whatever they are called these days in games, but even I can see the use case where you can gain those in-game and then manage them outside of the game, trade them with other players, and maybe bring them with you to the next version of the game or even to another game. NFTs enable this without having to build any of the infrastructure to support it.

itsoktocry 5y ago
>even I can see the use case where you can gain those in-game and then manage them outside of the game, trade them with other players, and maybe bring them with you to the next version of the game or even to another game. All of this sounds completely dependent on the game designers, which is the opposite of decentralized, no? What requires NFTs? You can't just "bring" something into another game.
- meowface 5y ago
  >What requires NFTs? You can't just "bring" something into another game. Isn't that kind of the point of NFTs? With an NFT, you hypothetically could bring something into another game. You'd need different developers to agree to recognize certain NFTs, though. I think the better question to ask is the reverse: what requires bringing things into different games? Historically, nothing. This doesn't seem to be a thing most developers want. And if they don't want that, there wouldn't be a point to implementing NFTs, since they're already keeping things centralized. So it's really just a philosophical discussion about the idea of things being tradable between and outside of particular games, and the potential merits of that, rather than a technical discussion about NFTs.
  - hakfoo 5y ago
    For this to be useful, you'd need an infrastructure-- standard APIs and formats for interchange. I'm picturing the initial sell as like those old Pokemon events or trading via the link cable, but you could buy a Trabant P601 from Gran Turismo, Zhongli from Genshin Impact, and Messi from FIFA21 to drop into the game too. How do you make use of that sort of open-ended diversity without ruining gameplay? You'd either be limited to trivial uses (avatars/skins or randomizations) or you'd have a huge vector for feeding in game-breaking items and characters. The alternative is a closed network-- only allowing a small selection of pre-vetted NFTs that won't break the game, which adds very little value over something like the Skylanders/Infinity/Amiibo concept that already exists, except you don't get a cool figure too.
- janstice 5y ago
  Doesn’t require NFTs, but NFTs could solve the problem of digital trading in untrustworthy markets - like game codes and event tickets. (Introduce other problems too, like getting hijacked by people who are overexcited at the thought of fractionalised links to jpgs…).
  - MystK 5y ago
    Does it really solve for digital trading in untrustworthy markets though? How would the smart contract verify that the event ticket or game code was legitimate? If it was up to the buyer, they could just lie.
    - IanCal 5y ago
      I'm not sure I understand the question - the ticket would be on the blockchain and therefore easily verifiable.
- andreilys 5y ago
  The point of NFT's is that, yes, you could bring something into another game (As long as the devs allow porting of NFT goods into their game). As an example, if someone has a Runescape party hat, they could equip that on their world of warcraft character.
  - irskep 5y ago
    This still makes absolutely no sense to me. The developer of Runescape is not going to collaborate with the developer of Warcraft to give them a copy of the model, figure out how the stats translate, put the textures in the right format, etc. Games use completely different equations for damage, defense, speed, etc. It's 100% magical thinking. Even if you did have game items transferring across totally unrelated games, you'd _want_ a centralized database to make bug fixes possible. After all, games as a class of programs aren't known for being bug-free.
    - knownjorbist 5y ago
      Yes, there is no metadata standard at the moment. But if that existed, the Runescape and Warcraft developers would not have to coordinate at all.
      - jameshart 5y ago
        So.... this party hat asset comes with a permissive license that lets world of warcraft distribute it from their servers down to players' clients, right? So that the people who are playing on the same server as the owner of this NFT can see the hat, being worn by that player, in their game? But then if it's licensed that freely, what's to stop world of warcraft just using it in general? Put it on a bunch of NPCs. Let any player put it on their own character. Or does the license have some sort of restrictions - 'you may only use this asset as a hat on the player character of the person who owns this NFT'? How's that enforced? Seriously, WHY would WoW go to the trouble of supporting this nonsense?
        andreilys 5y ago
- dropnerd 5y ago
  builders around loot project are exploring this (disclaimer: i own a few of their nfts) there are primitive games that are building on top of other projects' nfts because it's a way to secure an initial audience.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    Ok, but couldn't they build off the content of those NFTs, just without bothering to actually care about the NFTs? I don't get why this artificial restriction-by-convention is appealing.
    - dropnerd 5y ago
      there could be licensing restrictions. (i think we can do better, but it's a path.) in the absence of licensing restrictions, the nft owners are incentivized to prefer projects that provide utility for their nfts.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        > there could be licensing restrictions. Ok, but the supposed benefit was to a game's prospective competition. Why in the hell would the game developer want to license content created for their game to be used in a competitor's game? > in the absence of licensing restrictions, the nft owners are incentivized to prefer projects that provide utility for their nfts. And everyone who doesn't have those NFTs have no such incentive. Even if I own game X's NFTs, there is no disincentive for me to play game Y that straight up uses game Z's NFTs for free. Or hell, even if it used game X's. I might want to play with an item I don't have in game X, after all. If a game came out tomorrow that reused TF2's hats and shit, do you really think anyone would consider the fact that they have hats in their TF2 account a disincentive to play the new game? This is like that part in HGttG[0] where the Golgafrinchans decided leaves were currency and burnt down the forests to ensure their scarcity. I have no idea why you people can't see how mad you all are. [0] In case anyone doesn't know: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.
joe_guy 5y ago
if you're trading them, then aren't they fungible?
- meowface 5y ago
  They aren't. You're trading one non-fungible thing for a different non-fungible thing. Alternatively, a game could also offer SFTs (semi-fungible tokens, as described in ERC-1155 [1]), in which case players could trade multiple identical versions of some indivisible asset. Something like a skin or a hat would be an SFT unless only one copy of it existed (i.e. only one player could ever use that skin or hat at any time). [1] https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1155 https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1155
- elevenoh 5y ago
  fungible = mutually interchangeable NFTs = typically (and at a low level arguably always) non mutually interchangeable, aka unique.
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  They would be unique items that are identifiable from other items. (e.g. different hashes, even if they represent the same item in game) “There are many like it, but this one is mine.”
- djur 5y ago
  Not any more so than car titles are fungible. If I give you $10k cash and you give me $10k cash we end up in exactly the same material position, despite owning technically different objects (dollar bills) than before. That's because the dollar bills are fungible tokens representing a value. But if we trade titles for cars worth $10k each, we are both now in a different material position since we own different cars now. (The problem with NFTs in this analogy is that transferring car titles has legal weight, while selling an NFT probably doesn't without additional contractual language.)
birdyrooster 5y ago
I don’t see companies letting their intellectual property float out onto a public blockchain to be used by any other game. Unless they have total control over how that IP is used, I don’t see any publishers funding games like this. I think it would even undermine their copyright if they didn’t enforce these limitations. Think about it, a much smaller fish could offer a very similar game that uses the inventories of NFTs from GameA and become a serious threat to the business of GameA overnight by sniping the player base with the promise of keeping their inventory.
- 1ark 5y ago
  Have you looked? https://rabbidstoken.ubisoft.com/ https://rabbidstoken.ubisoft.com/
  - birdyrooster 5y ago
    What game are these assets used in?
spywaregorilla 5y ago
A very boring database also supports this.
somehnacct3757 5y ago
Game devs would never do this. Even if they're bullish on NFTs. The whole point of a sequel or spin-off is to hit the reset button on your game economy and shake down big spenders once more. It is also a design challenge. One of the design benefits of a new game is you can cancel, rework, or nerf strategies that players spent money on in the previous game.
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  This could still work with NFTs though, for example MTG has different formats of their game which have restrictions about which releases of cards are eligible for use, and some cards are banned from use in any format because they are too overpowered. Similarly, we could have games which ban NFTs which are overpowered turning them into collectibles with no in-game use. This isn't the reason NFTs aren't workable, because even if you could overcome the regulatory burdens, the bigger reason is control of IP. If other games can consume the NFTs from my game, then they can steal my player base by essentially forking the game with the promise of maintaining player inventories. Why would a publisher want this?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rank0 5y ago
I keep seeing this argument and it makes ZERO sense. You still need to build infrastructure to read the NFT and incorporate it into your game. You can already do this without a blockchain and a global network of hyper redundant miners/validators.
antifa 5y ago
> NFTs enable this without having to build any of the infrastructure to support it. So I could build this infrastructure on mongodb/dynamodb in a single weekend, offer it without $$$ minting/gas fees, still get higher margins, point out my solution is green, and offer my simpler solution to game devs, and everyone will be better off.

xtiansimon 5y ago

I was thinking the same thing. I found this article about a game called Axie Infinity. “ NFT games such as "Axie Infinity" and "NBA Top Shot" let people earn money by grooming and selling animal characters called Axies, which players treat as digital pets. […] They will then groom these Axies, team up with their friends and make Axies do battle like Pokemon, and build so-called "virtual kingdoms."“ In any other game the characters you develop are essentially the _same_ as any other character played by any other player—maybe with the exception of the character name which you could personalize. I can appreciate the notion that you can develop a character which can be uniquely identified. Without devolving into a philosophical argument about games simulating reality, I’m thinking you can see NFTs as a fundamental change, because NFTs offer a unique player experience. If Eve Online creates a unique experience by allowing players to create corporations, then NFT character is a unique experience at the individual player level. Unique digital assets are compelling like baseball cards https://www.techtimes.com/articles/263796/20210805/how-do-nft-games-work.htm https://www.techtimes.com/articles/263796/20210805/how-do-nf...