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>The idea that game companies will allow players to share resources between games with NFTs is both technically questionable and financially absurd. I don't th

>The idea that game companies will allow players to share resources between games with NFTs is both technically questionable and financially absurd. I don't think that's necessarily absurd. The sword in question would just have to be converted to work with the game itself, or you get a representation of it. Some games like RPGs have item budgets that determine how many stats are associated with it. So your NFT's "value" could convert to this item budget. Maybe instead of being a literal sword in a sci-fi game, it becomes a ship or a gun with the same name/description. I think game companies are going to try it. It's not like they haven't tried charging players for silly things in the past.

Jcowell 5y ago
How would a game know how to render this foreign element ? Assets and all and for each “supported” NFT.
mc32 5y ago
And why wouldn’t the game developers issue these rare swords rather than a foreign non gaming) entity whose sole value is in creating made up scarcity. Game developers can do this themselves without grifters.
acdha 5y ago
> I don't think that's necessarily absurd. > The sword in question would just have to be converted to work with the game itself, or you get a representation of it. “just” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. For that to happen, you need all of the following to be done: 1. The second game's developers need to license the rights to use the first game's assets, which may not be possible at any price short of taking a controlling interest in the first game's owner. 2. The developers need to convert the assets into a format used by their engine: converting images, animations, sounds to the format they use (e.g. the major game engines don't even agree on which direction is up); things like 3-D meshes need to be imported and adjusted to the right size; sounds need to be normalized to match the rest of the game's assets. 3. Any custom behaviors (which are often why you care about this thing in the first place) need to be implemented and tested. 4. The item needs to be balanced so it's not too weak (the “owner” won't like that) or too powerful (everyone else won't like pay-to-win). 5. Game B needs to know that you hold that item in game A, and yank it if you sell it. All of that costs real money, which means that the developers of game B are going to need to charge you even though you already paid a premium for it in game A. The part that NFTs can do is by far the easiest part and can be done far more cheaply in any scenario where step #1 has happened. If you do the easiest one (cosmetic only), it's still more expensive in terms of artist time than almost anyone is going to want to pay. In all cases, the big question is opportunity cost: if game B's developers are going to spend a million dollars implementing something, do they spend it chasing items which game A's made the profit on hoping they can convince whatever fraction of the people who own game A but were unlikely to buy game B to change their minds, or do they build something they can sell to as many people as possible without having to share the profits?

Jcowell 5y ago

How would a game know how to render this foreign element ? Assets and all and for each “supported” NFT.

mc32 5y ago

And why wouldn’t the game developers issue these rare swords rather than a foreign non gaming) entity whose sole value is in creating made up scarcity. Game developers can do this themselves without grifters.

acdha 5y ago

> I don't think that's necessarily absurd. > The sword in question would just have to be converted to work with the game itself, or you get a representation of it. “just” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. For that to happen, you need all of the following to be done: 1. The second game's developers need to license the rights to use the first game's assets, which may not be possible at any price short of taking a controlling interest in the first game's owner. 2. The developers need to convert the assets into a format used by their engine: converting images, animations, sounds to the format they use (e.g. the major game engines don't even agree on which direction is up); things like 3-D meshes need to be imported and adjusted to the right size; sounds need to be normalized to match the rest of the game's assets. 3. Any custom behaviors (which are often why you care about this thing in the first place) need to be implemented and tested. 4. The item needs to be balanced so it's not too weak (the “owner” won't like that) or too powerful (everyone else won't like pay-to-win). 5. Game B needs to know that you hold that item in game A, and yank it if you sell it. All of that costs real money, which means that the developers of game B are going to need to charge you even though you already paid a premium for it in game A. The part that NFTs can do is by far the easiest part and can be done far more cheaply in any scenario where step #1 has happened. If you do the easiest one (cosmetic only), it's still more expensive in terms of artist time than almost anyone is going to want to pay. In all cases, the big question is opportunity cost: if game B's developers are going to spend a million dollars implementing something, do they spend it chasing items which game A's made the profit on hoping they can convince whatever fraction of the people who own game A but were unlikely to buy game B to change their minds, or do they build something they can sell to as many people as possible without having to share the profits?