5 ms·

This is definitely a backlash. I see a lot of specious arguments and strong statements that are usually generationizations focused on the negative. Like every

This is definitely a backlash. I see a lot of specious arguments and strong statements that are usually generationizations focused on the negative. Like everything about crypto is a scam or money laundering, or that NFTs can never work in any way, definitely not interoperable metaverse assets, and all are destorying the environment. People don't think clearly about this any more. It feels how many committed Democrats talk about Republicans and vice-versa -- all nuance is lost and the other side is evil and there is no middle ground or understanding at all. If you slam crypto or NFTs on Twitter, you will get tons of likes. If you mention that there is a lot of work towards more environmentally friendly NFTs via L2 and other environmentally friendly blockchains that by definition means that it also has low fees and this addresses one of the core criticisms, I find that people just shift towards a different anti-NFT argument, or call me a name. I think that a lot of people are anti-NFT because they hate them and all these explanations for the exact reason why they suck shift once you start talking to these NFT haters and engaging them. It is okay, you are allowed to hate NFTs, but the core technology is actually really powerful and I expect it to completely explode within the gaming community when these low and no-fee blockchains take over from the very inefficient Ethereum L1 NFTs. Although in the later versions of NFTs and cryptos they will more and more resemble the traditional banking institutions (often real-names, hosted key accounts, fully audited, and probably at least somewhat reversible transactions and various limits to prevent fraud), rather than the Wild West they currently are.

tpush 5y ago
> [...] I expect it to completely explode within the gaming community when these low and no-fee blockchains take over [...] What use do block chains have for gaming that can't already be done more efficiently?
- bhouston 5y ago
  Supporting efficient blockchains for in-game assets, those blockchains with near zero fees, enable (1) robust secondary markets as well as (1) interchangeable assets when desired (such as avatar customizations.) Right now the game industry tends to offer walled garden and fractured solutions here.
  - acdha 5y ago
    In other words, blockchains don’t help at all. The game industry has walled gardens now because that’s what they want and people keep giving them billions of dollars, not because nobody has heard of databases and APIs.
    - bhouston 5y ago
      > In other words, blockchains don’t help at all. The game industry has walled gardens now because that’s what they want and people keep giving them billions of dollars, not because nobody has heard of databases and APIs. I think that offering interoperability will be a benefit for new entrants. Existing players tend to not change their ways very easily. But I think the potential for game microtransaction revenue can be even larger with robust NFT marketplaces, secondary markets and the potential for interoperability of metaverse assets. There is more money here down this path and thus I think it will happen.
      - acdha 5y ago
        The two big concerns I’d have are the companies’ desires to build up captive audiences (e.g. Ubisoft’s NFT restricted to their system) and the challenges of bootstrapping a marketplace on the idea of interoperability which doesn’t benefit the consumer until multiple companies actually implement it and their fees are known. It’s a tough sell to pay more upfront in the hopes that it’ll yield results later, and that applies both to the consumers being asked to buy these NFTs and the companies being pitched on implementing them without clear demand.
        bhouston 5y ago
        > It’s a tough sell to pay more upfront in the hopes that it’ll yield results later, and that applies both to the consumers being asked to buy these NFTs and the companies being pitched on implementing them without clear demand. Integrating third party blockchain microtransaction engines I think will be cheaper than implementing a custom solution for new games. I think it will in the future be viewed akin to adopting Auth0 for authentication rather than rolling your own - it seems cheaper to do it yourself until you want to get for ISO compliance or deal with JWT or SAML or OAuth or 2FA integration, and then you need your own people dealing with bugs, features, and UX designs distracting you from pushing your product's unique features forward.
acdha 5y ago
> I think that a lot of people are anti-NFT because they hate them and all these explanations for the exact reason why they suck shift once you start talking to these NFT haters and engaging them. This seems like you’re arguing against the weakest form of the argument rather than engaging with the specific criticisms offered by people who understand the technology at least as well as most proponents. For example, most of the criticism I’ve seen of NFTs in gaming isn’t just about the high cost or environmental but rather more the fundamental business questions about what problems the companies who make games have which are best solved this way. If it’s something a company could trivially do now but has chosen not to, it’s unlikely to have a technological fix.
- bhouston 5y ago
  > This seems like you’re arguing against the weakest form of the argument rather than engaging with the specific criticisms offered by people who understand the technology at least as well as most proponents. Does this meet your needs? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30243820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30243820 I also discuss interoperability and how I suspect it will be realized here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30243851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30243851
  - FranksTV 5y ago
    Interoperability isn't juat a technical problem. It's also an economic and game balance problem. All three problems are insurmountable. It's just a monumentally stupid idea.
    - bhouston 5y ago
      > Interoperability isn't juat a technical problem. It's also an economic and game balance problem. > > All three problems are insurmountable. It's just a monumentally stupid idea. When I refer to people who seem to not really understand nuance but rather view it in stark contrast I am specifically speaking of comments such as the above. What happens if I want to bring in visual only avatar configuration? Does doesn't affect game balance. What happens if I wanted to tie my officially licensed sports game to assets that are being sold by sports teams in the leagues I have licensed? Or Nike or Adidas ensure that NFT shoes you buy online work in Fortnite or Roblox by giving these games some money to enable that? Maybe the game is part of a series and some of the top in-game purchase are transferable to the next game in the series, even if it is created by a different company using different tech? Maybe I want to be able to bring my WoW sword and carry it around in Decentraland where you don't really die and thus its stats don't matter because I like it? Maybe I am a game publisher who has a few different genres of games and I make some special items which can go between the various games and result in really weird effects/bonuses? Cross promoting my properties. I think there will be a lot of cool things happening if people start to see the potential here.
rsynnott 5y ago
> I think that a lot of people are anti-NFT because they hate them and all these explanations for the exact reason why they suck shift once you start talking to these NFT haters and engaging them. As one of the terrible nocoin haters, possibly I can explain what's going on here. People dislike NFTs for _multiple reasons_: - They're typically hideously wasteful of energy. - They are typically scams - Even if not explicitly scams, they represent a pointless and inefficient financialisation of bloody everything that no-one except crypto enthusiasts seems to be at all interested in - The art is weirdly universally alarmingly bad - As applied to games, they incentivise bad (pay to win) design dynamics I could go on. It is not inconsistent to dislike something for multiple reasons.
- bhouston 5y ago
  > They're typically hideously wasteful of energy. What do you think of Immutable X, which has pledged to make all transactions on its blockchain carbon neutral? https://www.immutable.com https://www.immutable.com > They are typically scams There is definitely a lot of scams. First most of the ICOs a few years back were scams, and then a lot/most? of DeFi schemes are scams. But I am not scared off of an area just because there are scammers in the vicinity. I think there is a lot of opportunity for what I would term gentrification of what are otherwise lawless areas. > Even if not explicitly scams, they represent a pointless and inefficient financialisation of bloody everything that no-one except crypto enthusiasts seems to be at all interested in I think that it will become less "inefficient" over time. I think that what can be sold will be sold if there is a market. There will be a series of fads, just like in real-life. I think this sorts itself out. If you want to believe Beanie Babies are a good thing to sell and speculate on, go for it. I won't stop you. But I probably won't speculate on those. > The art is weirdly universally alarmingly bad A lot of NFT art is derivative. But there are tens of thousands of artists who have made NFTs, and many are talented. I think you are cherry picking the copycats and the grifters work. > As applied to games, they incentivise bad (pay to win) design dynamics Games for me already went deep into the "pay to win" territory once they landed on mobile. That made a lot of companies quite rich. Thus you may disagree with the dynamics, but they are the main way that mobile games make money.
- politician 5y ago
doom2 5y ago
> I see a lot of specious arguments and strong statements that are usually generationizations focused on the negative. Doesn't this go both ways? People hear the loudest voices in the room, both for and against crypto. As a personal anecdote, I asked an acquaintance who is really into Internet Computer[1] how apps that implement the Matrix protocol[2] compare to something like OpenChat[3]. Their response was unconvincing, mainly because it was more like generalized marketing hype for Internet Computer and not actually addressing my question directly. So I think while there are plenty of folks who blindly hate on the crypto/web3 ecosystem, there are also a lot of people trying to engage constructively and getting pro-crypto memes thrown back in their face. Where's the space for nuanced answers to these nuanced criticisms? [1] https://smartcontracts.org/docs/introduction/welcome.html https://smartcontracts.org/docs/introduction/welcome.html [2] https://www.matrix.org https://www.matrix.org [3] https://oc.app https://oc.app

tpush 5y ago

> [...] I expect it to completely explode within the gaming community when these low and no-fee blockchains take over [...] What use do block chains have for gaming that can't already be done more efficiently?

bhouston 5y ago
Supporting efficient blockchains for in-game assets, those blockchains with near zero fees, enable (1) robust secondary markets as well as (1) interchangeable assets when desired (such as avatar customizations.) Right now the game industry tends to offer walled garden and fractured solutions here.
- acdha 5y ago
  In other words, blockchains don’t help at all. The game industry has walled gardens now because that’s what they want and people keep giving them billions of dollars, not because nobody has heard of databases and APIs.
  - bhouston 5y ago
    > In other words, blockchains don’t help at all. The game industry has walled gardens now because that’s what they want and people keep giving them billions of dollars, not because nobody has heard of databases and APIs. I think that offering interoperability will be a benefit for new entrants. Existing players tend to not change their ways very easily. But I think the potential for game microtransaction revenue can be even larger with robust NFT marketplaces, secondary markets and the potential for interoperability of metaverse assets. There is more money here down this path and thus I think it will happen.
    - acdha 5y ago
      The two big concerns I’d have are the companies’ desires to build up captive audiences (e.g. Ubisoft’s NFT restricted to their system) and the challenges of bootstrapping a marketplace on the idea of interoperability which doesn’t benefit the consumer until multiple companies actually implement it and their fees are known. It’s a tough sell to pay more upfront in the hopes that it’ll yield results later, and that applies both to the consumers being asked to buy these NFTs and the companies being pitched on implementing them without clear demand.
      - bhouston 5y ago
        > It’s a tough sell to pay more upfront in the hopes that it’ll yield results later, and that applies both to the consumers being asked to buy these NFTs and the companies being pitched on implementing them without clear demand. Integrating third party blockchain microtransaction engines I think will be cheaper than implementing a custom solution for new games. I think it will in the future be viewed akin to adopting Auth0 for authentication rather than rolling your own - it seems cheaper to do it yourself until you want to get for ISO compliance or deal with JWT or SAML or OAuth or 2FA integration, and then you need your own people dealing with bugs, features, and UX designs distracting you from pushing your product's unique features forward.

acdha 5y ago

> I think that a lot of people are anti-NFT because they hate them and all these explanations for the exact reason why they suck shift once you start talking to these NFT haters and engaging them. This seems like you’re arguing against the weakest form of the argument rather than engaging with the specific criticisms offered by people who understand the technology at least as well as most proponents. For example, most of the criticism I’ve seen of NFTs in gaming isn’t just about the high cost or environmental but rather more the fundamental business questions about what problems the companies who make games have which are best solved this way. If it’s something a company could trivially do now but has chosen not to, it’s unlikely to have a technological fix.

bhouston 5y ago
> This seems like you’re arguing against the weakest form of the argument rather than engaging with the specific criticisms offered by people who understand the technology at least as well as most proponents. Does this meet your needs? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30243820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30243820 I also discuss interoperability and how I suspect it will be realized here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30243851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30243851
- FranksTV 5y ago
  Interoperability isn't juat a technical problem. It's also an economic and game balance problem. All three problems are insurmountable. It's just a monumentally stupid idea.
  - bhouston 5y ago
    > Interoperability isn't juat a technical problem. It's also an economic and game balance problem. > > All three problems are insurmountable. It's just a monumentally stupid idea. When I refer to people who seem to not really understand nuance but rather view it in stark contrast I am specifically speaking of comments such as the above. What happens if I want to bring in visual only avatar configuration? Does doesn't affect game balance. What happens if I wanted to tie my officially licensed sports game to assets that are being sold by sports teams in the leagues I have licensed? Or Nike or Adidas ensure that NFT shoes you buy online work in Fortnite or Roblox by giving these games some money to enable that? Maybe the game is part of a series and some of the top in-game purchase are transferable to the next game in the series, even if it is created by a different company using different tech? Maybe I want to be able to bring my WoW sword and carry it around in Decentraland where you don't really die and thus its stats don't matter because I like it? Maybe I am a game publisher who has a few different genres of games and I make some special items which can go between the various games and result in really weird effects/bonuses? Cross promoting my properties. I think there will be a lot of cool things happening if people start to see the potential here.

rsynnott 5y ago

> I think that a lot of people are anti-NFT because they hate them and all these explanations for the exact reason why they suck shift once you start talking to these NFT haters and engaging them. As one of the terrible nocoin haters, possibly I can explain what's going on here. People dislike NFTs for _multiple reasons_: - They're typically hideously wasteful of energy. - They are typically scams - Even if not explicitly scams, they represent a pointless and inefficient financialisation of bloody everything that no-one except crypto enthusiasts seems to be at all interested in - The art is weirdly universally alarmingly bad - As applied to games, they incentivise bad (pay to win) design dynamics I could go on. It is not inconsistent to dislike something for multiple reasons.

bhouston 5y ago
> They're typically hideously wasteful of energy. What do you think of Immutable X, which has pledged to make all transactions on its blockchain carbon neutral? https://www.immutable.com https://www.immutable.com > They are typically scams There is definitely a lot of scams. First most of the ICOs a few years back were scams, and then a lot/most? of DeFi schemes are scams. But I am not scared off of an area just because there are scammers in the vicinity. I think there is a lot of opportunity for what I would term gentrification of what are otherwise lawless areas. > Even if not explicitly scams, they represent a pointless and inefficient financialisation of bloody everything that no-one except crypto enthusiasts seems to be at all interested in I think that it will become less "inefficient" over time. I think that what can be sold will be sold if there is a market. There will be a series of fads, just like in real-life. I think this sorts itself out. If you want to believe Beanie Babies are a good thing to sell and speculate on, go for it. I won't stop you. But I probably won't speculate on those. > The art is weirdly universally alarmingly bad A lot of NFT art is derivative. But there are tens of thousands of artists who have made NFTs, and many are talented. I think you are cherry picking the copycats and the grifters work. > As applied to games, they incentivise bad (pay to win) design dynamics Games for me already went deep into the "pay to win" territory once they landed on mobile. That made a lot of companies quite rich. Thus you may disagree with the dynamics, but they are the main way that mobile games make money.
politician 5y ago

doom2 5y ago

> I see a lot of specious arguments and strong statements that are usually generationizations focused on the negative. Doesn't this go both ways? People hear the loudest voices in the room, both for and against crypto. As a personal anecdote, I asked an acquaintance who is really into Internet Computer[1] how apps that implement the Matrix protocol[2] compare to something like OpenChat[3]. Their response was unconvincing, mainly because it was more like generalized marketing hype for Internet Computer and not actually addressing my question directly. So I think while there are plenty of folks who blindly hate on the crypto/web3 ecosystem, there are also a lot of people trying to engage constructively and getting pro-crypto memes thrown back in their face. Where's the space for nuanced answers to these nuanced criticisms? [1] https://smartcontracts.org/docs/introduction/welcome.html https://smartcontracts.org/docs/introduction/welcome.html [2] https://www.matrix.org https://www.matrix.org [3] https://oc.app https://oc.app