7 ms·

You look at the biggest games of the year: God of War, Elden Ring, Stray, etc. Shoehorning in NFT-style assets into these games is just a ridiculous proposal, e

You look at the biggest games of the year: God of War, Elden Ring, Stray, etc. Shoehorning in NFT-style assets into these games is just a ridiculous proposal, especially ones with any kind of "marketplace" that you would have to support. All of the time and effort and maintenance and customer service, all of that would hit the bottom line of the game. The better studios -- that is, the ones who make game-of-the-year candidates -- just won't bother when they can be spending their finite development time on the game itself. And the idea that they'd buy into a cross-game shared-asset economy is just ludicrous and is a fundamental misunderstanding of P&L at a studio level. There is absolutely zero chance of, say, EA and Activision collaborating on a spec to share assets across brands. Zero, no matter how much you could spin it to executives. "So a BF player could use COD skins?" would get you laughed out of your pitch.

thr0wawayf00 4y ago
> There is absolutely zero chance of, say, EA and Activision collaborating on a spec to share assets across brands. Zero, no matter how much you could spin it to executives. We're seeing the startup mentality being applied to generate these new markets within gaming and people just aren't buying it. It's such an intellectually dishonest argument to make that players want to be able to share assets across games as you point out, yet we're seeing these highly-respected tech leaders try to convince us that such a brain-dead idea is visionary. Why? Because they stand to make another fortune on it and they have absolutely no problem lying to our faces about it.
- duskwuff 4y ago
  And the closely related concept of being able to transfer functional game items between games, or sell them on the open market, is even more ridiculous. Not only is it completely incompatible with any concept of game balance, but it's really just a roundabout way of saying that every game should be pay-to-win (by buying items outside the game) -- which is a mechanic which most gamers hate.
  - malermeister 4y ago
    It's technologically impossible and also straight up makes no sense if you think about it for longer than a second. Call of Duty should implement all the various potions from World of Warcraft? What does a Mario Kart powerup do in your Halo game?
    - mark242 4y ago
      I'm trying to envision the pitch to, for example, Fromsoftware, makers of Elden Ring. Ignore the cross-game component for a second because that's mind-bogglingly dumb. "You could have artificial scarcity of Rivers of Blood*! Imagine that only 1000 people could own it, and could auction it off, and you'd make a percentage of every single transaction! You'd have a brand new monetary stream in-game!" Alright. Now try to wrap your head around a scenario in which, for a primarily single-player game, people wouldn't completely excoriate Fromsoftware for doing that. It breaks the story. It breaks the sense of achievement in-game. It breaks even the loose sense of community that the game has. It breaks the fundamental nature of the game itself, which is "you have the freedom to build your character how you want as long as you git gud**". I just don't see the value added at all. There's zero point to it. There used to be games that allowed you to import your characters from older games in the series, for example Ultima. That was interesting for a minute as a bit of a novelty, but that quickly died off because it turns out that people really just want to start out at zero and work their way up. The idea of paying for it is just wildly crazy. * note to reader: massively overpowered weapon that you get later in the game which takes your character to a completely other level. ** learn the game mechanics, enemies, strengths/weaknesses of weapons, armor, etc. An artificially scarce weapon would never get used.
      - imtringued 4y ago
        When I read Rivers of Blood I thought people started owning a location that is necessary to progress through the story and that there would be an overpowered NPC trying to commit highway robbery. I like these game based experiments of adding real economic elements into a game and seeing exactly where and why it is going wrong because games haven't been politicized to death with partisan interest groups defending their ideology. No, most developers are focused on providing good entertainment and a lot of real world business practices are openly hostile to enjoying yourself which is exactly how many feel about the real world economy but any discussion about improving it will then be thrown into one of the left right baskets, people are more concerned whether something could be called communism or socialism or not than if it is an effective policy that helps both the country and the people.
- nl 4y ago
  > yet we're seeing these highly-respected tech leaders try to convince us that such a brain-dead idea is visionary. Why? Because they stand to make another fortune on it and they have absolutely no problem lying to our faces about it. They are clearly wrong, but I think much of the time they aren't lying so much as ignorant. They aren't gamers, and the logic makes sense to them but they are missing the details that actual gamers care about.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    "What do I care about? Making money. It's the focus of my life. Therefore everyone else cares about that too. We should inject external economic motives into games, they're totally gonna eat this up!"
    - chaosbolt 4y ago
      >"What do I care about? Making money. It's the focus of my life. You should've listened then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18183102#18184642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18183102#18184642
      - Nursie 4y ago
        In case you didn't understand the content of my post there, it wasn't about me. I note that chainlink is still not "the next bitcoin or ethereum", and frankly I wouldn't care if it was.
drchopchop 4y ago
Not to mention the technical issues involved in having a truly cross-platform asset. What's the poly and texture count? How is scale represented? Collision volumes? How does it render properly? What file formats do we standardize on? The whole thing is ridiculous. The cynical view would be that this is trying to quickly get retail gamers/"investors" to subsidize VC returns, before the crypto market fully tanks.
- tehwebguy 4y ago
  Plus they are nuking their own skin revenue to support some other game's, total nonsense
- emmo 4y ago
  I think much more likely is the items would be created for each game and you'd just gain access to them. Otherwise yeah, it'd be an absolute nightmare, like you said.
kawaiikouhai 4y ago
I don't think even the Crypto VCs are approaching this from the angle of making a compelling video game. They don't need to. This is all about creating the next platform for ingame digital consumerism. Think Genshin impact rather than any GoTY title. And the unfortunate thing (for them that is), is that they haven't even figured out how do to that yet. Nobody buys web3 games, and it's been ~2 years. Until they figure out the MVP of it enhancing digital consumerism, all other promises are just a marketing spin.
- hakfoo 4y ago
  It's funny, but as someone who's played it for a year, and yes, has spent $20, Genshin has remarkably non-in-your-face monetization. Plenty of games launch where the first screen is a sales pitch, but you actually have to look for it there. It's successful because it's a very well-put-together game experience-- smooth controls, plenty of content, a reasonable level of handholding. You've got to convince people they're actually going to have fun before dropping them in front of a credit card entry form.
  - kawaiikouhai 4y ago
    Oh yeah, I played Genshin for a year as well. It is a very well-polished, high-budget game with some good implementations of gameplay mechanics. Which makes it the quintessential example of the modern AAA skinnerbox game. Polished gameplay, a good initial hook, and an addictive gameplay loop. Which is what Justin Kan and Co. are trying to create, but have been largely unsuccessful in doing so.
charcircuit 4y ago
>"So a BF player could use COD skins?" Something more realistic is can a player trade BF skins for COD skins. There doesn't need to be compatibility built into the game. Just having them as NFTs on the same chain unlocks new possibilities. For example instead of trading a BF player could lock up an expensive skin and borrow some cheaper COD skins to use for a weekend to show off at an esports tournament. After the weekend is over he returns the COD skins and gets his BF skin back.
- malermeister 4y ago
  And Activision and EA would agree to this why exactly?
  - charcircuit 4y ago
    Because it's cheaper to reuse the web3 ecosystem compared to spending resources recreating your own version. It saves development time and is a proconsumer move.
whoami_nr 4y ago
While it is actually ridiculous for the games you mentioned, it makes sense for certain FPS/Racing games. Plus, common asset sharing isn't the only thing. Distributed infra for certain cross game modules also make a lot of sense. I wrote[1] a small post summarizing all possible use cases of putting game assets/game itself on-chain. [1]https://rnikhil.com/2022/06/27/web3-gaming.html https://rnikhil.com/2022/06/27/web3-gaming.html

thr0wawayf00 4y ago

> There is absolutely zero chance of, say, EA and Activision collaborating on a spec to share assets across brands. Zero, no matter how much you could spin it to executives. We're seeing the startup mentality being applied to generate these new markets within gaming and people just aren't buying it. It's such an intellectually dishonest argument to make that players want to be able to share assets across games as you point out, yet we're seeing these highly-respected tech leaders try to convince us that such a brain-dead idea is visionary. Why? Because they stand to make another fortune on it and they have absolutely no problem lying to our faces about it.

duskwuff 4y ago
And the closely related concept of being able to transfer functional game items between games, or sell them on the open market, is even more ridiculous. Not only is it completely incompatible with any concept of game balance, but it's really just a roundabout way of saying that every game should be pay-to-win (by buying items outside the game) -- which is a mechanic which most gamers hate.
- malermeister 4y ago
  It's technologically impossible and also straight up makes no sense if you think about it for longer than a second. Call of Duty should implement all the various potions from World of Warcraft? What does a Mario Kart powerup do in your Halo game?
  - mark242 4y ago
    I'm trying to envision the pitch to, for example, Fromsoftware, makers of Elden Ring. Ignore the cross-game component for a second because that's mind-bogglingly dumb. "You could have artificial scarcity of Rivers of Blood*! Imagine that only 1000 people could own it, and could auction it off, and you'd make a percentage of every single transaction! You'd have a brand new monetary stream in-game!" Alright. Now try to wrap your head around a scenario in which, for a primarily single-player game, people wouldn't completely excoriate Fromsoftware for doing that. It breaks the story. It breaks the sense of achievement in-game. It breaks even the loose sense of community that the game has. It breaks the fundamental nature of the game itself, which is "you have the freedom to build your character how you want as long as you git gud**". I just don't see the value added at all. There's zero point to it. There used to be games that allowed you to import your characters from older games in the series, for example Ultima. That was interesting for a minute as a bit of a novelty, but that quickly died off because it turns out that people really just want to start out at zero and work their way up. The idea of paying for it is just wildly crazy. * note to reader: massively overpowered weapon that you get later in the game which takes your character to a completely other level. ** learn the game mechanics, enemies, strengths/weaknesses of weapons, armor, etc. An artificially scarce weapon would never get used.
    - imtringued 4y ago
      When I read Rivers of Blood I thought people started owning a location that is necessary to progress through the story and that there would be an overpowered NPC trying to commit highway robbery. I like these game based experiments of adding real economic elements into a game and seeing exactly where and why it is going wrong because games haven't been politicized to death with partisan interest groups defending their ideology. No, most developers are focused on providing good entertainment and a lot of real world business practices are openly hostile to enjoying yourself which is exactly how many feel about the real world economy but any discussion about improving it will then be thrown into one of the left right baskets, people are more concerned whether something could be called communism or socialism or not than if it is an effective policy that helps both the country and the people.
nl 4y ago
> yet we're seeing these highly-respected tech leaders try to convince us that such a brain-dead idea is visionary. Why? Because they stand to make another fortune on it and they have absolutely no problem lying to our faces about it. They are clearly wrong, but I think much of the time they aren't lying so much as ignorant. They aren't gamers, and the logic makes sense to them but they are missing the details that actual gamers care about.
- Nursie 4y ago
  "What do I care about? Making money. It's the focus of my life. Therefore everyone else cares about that too. We should inject external economic motives into games, they're totally gonna eat this up!"
  - chaosbolt 4y ago
    >"What do I care about? Making money. It's the focus of my life. You should've listened then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18183102#18184642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18183102#18184642
    - Nursie 4y ago
      In case you didn't understand the content of my post there, it wasn't about me. I note that chainlink is still not "the next bitcoin or ethereum", and frankly I wouldn't care if it was.

drchopchop 4y ago

Not to mention the technical issues involved in having a truly cross-platform asset. What's the poly and texture count? How is scale represented? Collision volumes? How does it render properly? What file formats do we standardize on? The whole thing is ridiculous. The cynical view would be that this is trying to quickly get retail gamers/"investors" to subsidize VC returns, before the crypto market fully tanks.

tehwebguy 4y ago
Plus they are nuking their own skin revenue to support some other game's, total nonsense
emmo 4y ago
I think much more likely is the items would be created for each game and you'd just gain access to them. Otherwise yeah, it'd be an absolute nightmare, like you said.

kawaiikouhai 4y ago

I don't think even the Crypto VCs are approaching this from the angle of making a compelling video game. They don't need to. This is all about creating the next platform for ingame digital consumerism. Think Genshin impact rather than any GoTY title. And the unfortunate thing (for them that is), is that they haven't even figured out how do to that yet. Nobody buys web3 games, and it's been ~2 years. Until they figure out the MVP of it enhancing digital consumerism, all other promises are just a marketing spin.

hakfoo 4y ago
It's funny, but as someone who's played it for a year, and yes, has spent $20, Genshin has remarkably non-in-your-face monetization. Plenty of games launch where the first screen is a sales pitch, but you actually have to look for it there. It's successful because it's a very well-put-together game experience-- smooth controls, plenty of content, a reasonable level of handholding. You've got to convince people they're actually going to have fun before dropping them in front of a credit card entry form.
- kawaiikouhai 4y ago
  Oh yeah, I played Genshin for a year as well. It is a very well-polished, high-budget game with some good implementations of gameplay mechanics. Which makes it the quintessential example of the modern AAA skinnerbox game. Polished gameplay, a good initial hook, and an addictive gameplay loop. Which is what Justin Kan and Co. are trying to create, but have been largely unsuccessful in doing so.

charcircuit 4y ago

>"So a BF player could use COD skins?" Something more realistic is can a player trade BF skins for COD skins. There doesn't need to be compatibility built into the game. Just having them as NFTs on the same chain unlocks new possibilities. For example instead of trading a BF player could lock up an expensive skin and borrow some cheaper COD skins to use for a weekend to show off at an esports tournament. After the weekend is over he returns the COD skins and gets his BF skin back.

malermeister 4y ago
And Activision and EA would agree to this why exactly?
- charcircuit 4y ago
  Because it's cheaper to reuse the web3 ecosystem compared to spending resources recreating your own version. It saves development time and is a proconsumer move.

whoami_nr 4y ago

While it is actually ridiculous for the games you mentioned, it makes sense for certain FPS/Racing games. Plus, common asset sharing isn't the only thing. Distributed infra for certain cross game modules also make a lot of sense. I wrote[1] a small post summarizing all possible use cases of putting game assets/game itself on-chain. [1]https://rnikhil.com/2022/06/27/web3-gaming.html https://rnikhil.com/2022/06/27/web3-gaming.html