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> It's nice that I could trade the game license to someone else without having the game developer approve it. These concepts break down extremely quickly in p

> It's nice that I could trade the game license to someone else without having the game developer approve it. These concepts break down extremely quickly in practice. For the above to work, the game developer would have to support all of this and code it into the game. There's nothing inherent to NFTs that makes a game license automatically transferable, nor does the game developer have to code their game such that the NFT-ed license continues working after it has been sold to someone else (all transaction history is part of the blockchain). What would really happen, in practice, is that the game developers would almost certainly require the NFT contract to involve some kickbacks to them. For example, you can trade the NFT license, but the contract requires sending X dollars to the game developer. Do you really think game developers are eager to leave money on the table? Not to mention, NFT transactions are bonkers expensive right now, at least on Ethereum. It's fun to think about trading game licenses on the blockchain, but if the transaction is going to set you back $50-100 USD just to make the contract go, you're not going to be trading anything on the blockchain that can be bought new for $10-$50.

robcohen 5y ago
> game developers would almost certainly require the NFT contract to involve some kickbacks Perhaps. But I think you may be jumping to conclusions there. The truth is that licenses have not been easily transferable in the past. So there's the effect here that the value of transferring the license can be accounted for by the user. If one platform (Steam/GOG) begins to utilize NFTs, then it's very possible that could cause market expectations to rapidly change. Imagine if cars were not transferable easily, then one day they were. What do you think would happen to the car market? Certainly, I'm sure if car manufacturers could have their way, they would make it impossible to transfer used cars because it artificially constricts supply. Yet under this hypothetical I don't believe that would occur. Instead, the car makers would need to adapt to having a secondary market.

robcohen 5y ago

> game developers would almost certainly require the NFT contract to involve some kickbacks Perhaps. But I think you may be jumping to conclusions there. The truth is that licenses have not been easily transferable in the past. So there's the effect here that the value of transferring the license can be accounted for by the user. If one platform (Steam/GOG) begins to utilize NFTs, then it's very possible that could cause market expectations to rapidly change. Imagine if cars were not transferable easily, then one day they were. What do you think would happen to the car market? Certainly, I'm sure if car manufacturers could have their way, they would make it impossible to transfer used cars because it artificially constricts supply. Yet under this hypothetical I don't believe that would occur. Instead, the car makers would need to adapt to having a secondary market.