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> In theory, I actually like the idea of games connected to the blockchain. The issue is, now your little funtime activity has serious tax implications. > Imag

> In theory, I actually like the idea of games connected to the blockchain. The issue is, now your little funtime activity has serious tax implications. > Imagine this, there's a neat little space pirates game. You buy an NFT ship, you buy some space missles, some fuel, contract a crew, and you go out. Maybe the dollar cost of all this was $60. Cool. More likely is you go out and encounter someone with a $600 ship and you lose $60. This is so much more insidious than pay to win games. This is paying to steal other people's money, and is going to be quickly optimized by anyone if there's actual profit volume to be captured. What's actually happening is ecosystems with minor trades, not really any stealing, and everyone just banking on the pyramid growing larger with new base layers at the bottom so the older players earn more

deleted 4y ago
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rl3 4y ago
>More likely is you go out and encounter someone with a $600 ship and you lose $60. This is so much more insidious than pay to win games. This is paying to steal other people's money, and is going to be quickly optimized by anyone if there's actual profit volume to be captured. EVE Online already sort of worked like this a decade ago. It wasn't blockchain, but in-game currency was heavily laundered for RMT (real-money trading) purposes, and eventually became real money—largely via way of sales to casual players looking for a leg up. What you'd end up with is these elaborate power structures, with elite players at the top who would fly ships worth thousands each (supercapitals). These ships would typically comprise their own fleet elements, with separate comms, intel and command structure. A single Titan used to be worth about $10,000 USD, but by the time B-R5RB happened, that was no longer the case. "Total forces involved 7,548 participants. Damages amounted to an approximate real-currency value of $300,000-330,000 USD." [0] All of this was for control of territory called soverign nullsec space or 0.0, which would reap massive amounts of profit for whoever controlled it. These profits owed to the mining of rare elements on planetary moons that were later sold, which in turn drove a large portion of the game's economy. Leaders of these power blocs had crazy opportunities laid before them to turn their in-game wealth into real wealth. External gambling sites using in-game currency were huge for a while, and were probably central to some laundering operations. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_B-R5RB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_B-R5RB
- meheleventyone 4y ago
  EVE is a bit different as the RMT side of things isn't intentional and combatted by CCP. Taking part can and does get people banned from the game. The dollar to ISK conversion comes from the sale of PLEX (https://secure.eveonline.com/plex https://secure.eveonline.com/plex) which was initially just a way to let people buy ISK by selling game time vouchers to in-game wealthy people. Essentially people were buying money from time rich players who then didn't have to pay to play the game. Now it's a bit more complex and MTX based as CCP have tried a few things to reinvigorate the player base. But the key difference is that you can put real money in and get ISK but there is no legitimate way to take it back out again. So there is no capital gain and so on and the money you "lose" was already intentionally spent in that knowledge rather than being an investment it would be possible to recoup on and taking part in that eco-system is voluntary rather than mandatory. (Disclaimer: I worked on EVE for four years quite a while ago.)

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rl3 4y ago

>More likely is you go out and encounter someone with a $600 ship and you lose $60. This is so much more insidious than pay to win games. This is paying to steal other people's money, and is going to be quickly optimized by anyone if there's actual profit volume to be captured. EVE Online already sort of worked like this a decade ago. It wasn't blockchain, but in-game currency was heavily laundered for RMT (real-money trading) purposes, and eventually became real money—largely via way of sales to casual players looking for a leg up. What you'd end up with is these elaborate power structures, with elite players at the top who would fly ships worth thousands each (supercapitals). These ships would typically comprise their own fleet elements, with separate comms, intel and command structure. A single Titan used to be worth about $10,000 USD, but by the time B-R5RB happened, that was no longer the case. "Total forces involved 7,548 participants. Damages amounted to an approximate real-currency value of $300,000-330,000 USD." [0] All of this was for control of territory called soverign nullsec space or 0.0, which would reap massive amounts of profit for whoever controlled it. These profits owed to the mining of rare elements on planetary moons that were later sold, which in turn drove a large portion of the game's economy. Leaders of these power blocs had crazy opportunities laid before them to turn their in-game wealth into real wealth. External gambling sites using in-game currency were huge for a while, and were probably central to some laundering operations. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_B-R5RB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_B-R5RB

meheleventyone 4y ago
EVE is a bit different as the RMT side of things isn't intentional and combatted by CCP. Taking part can and does get people banned from the game. The dollar to ISK conversion comes from the sale of PLEX (https://secure.eveonline.com/plex https://secure.eveonline.com/plex) which was initially just a way to let people buy ISK by selling game time vouchers to in-game wealthy people. Essentially people were buying money from time rich players who then didn't have to pay to play the game. Now it's a bit more complex and MTX based as CCP have tried a few things to reinvigorate the player base. But the key difference is that you can put real money in and get ISK but there is no legitimate way to take it back out again. So there is no capital gain and so on and the money you "lose" was already intentionally spent in that knowledge rather than being an investment it would be possible to recoup on and taking part in that eco-system is voluntary rather than mandatory. (Disclaimer: I worked on EVE for four years quite a while ago.)