6 ms·

Why classic gaming names like Atari are still going in on the blockchain

17 points by acecreamu 3y ago

GauntletWizard 3y ago
Atari isn't a classic gaming name; it's the latest in a line of pretenders (4th?) Who have bought the name at auction.
- KyeRussell 3y ago
  That makes the name Atari a classic gaming name. You’re ignoring the actual headline to try to nerd snipe.
  - hnbad 3y ago
    What do you think why they phrased it the way they did? Do you think most people reading the headline will think "ah, yes, the people who currently own the Atari brand but are completely detached from what the company that once held the name got famous for are still investing in blockchain tech despite its recent decline" or do you think they will think "oh wow, the company Atari that once was a household name in the 1980s and later went on to publish numerous games I like is still investing in blockchain tech despite its recent decline"? These two different takeaways have very different implications (random speculative investor vs former giant turned underdog). To put it another way, "elderly gentleman shares his opinion on invading Iran" and "former US secretary of defense shares his opinion on invading Iran" are two ways to break the same story and would likely both be factually correct but convey very different things about the merit of the opinion to the same audience (not taking the reader's personal biases into account). It's not nerd sniping. That's not even what nerd sniping means. It's also explicitly not ignoring the headline, it's ignoring the article.
proto-n 3y ago
Going against the usual knee jerk "crypto bad" reaction, I don't think nft-s are inherently bad in games. All the usual hatepoints (microtransactions, pay to win, developer still controls the use of the nfts, etc) are true or can be true with or without items being nfts. The difference I care about is tradability and transferability, which is inherent to nft-s but not to normal in-game items. For example hearthstone, blizzard's warcraft tcg, would be much better for nft cards. It would get a second hand card market similar to MTG automatically if it used nft cards on some public blockchain.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  The only difference between an in-game economy where items are transferable and an NFT version is that you can withdraw the items to neutral third-party exchanges and you can see the total inventory of items in the game at all times. I think there are benefits to having an open economy. With the switch to proof-of-stake blockchains the environmental argument is moot. I don’t see what the big deal is with NFT hate other than a general push back against developers overly-monetizing (but then again, who will pay for servers?) and general hate for crypto.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- erwinh 3y ago
  Stuff like this would be interesting but I think could only work if all art assets are then also uploaded to IPFS, game code is made open source so anyone could run/build/modify the game experience without any permission of the original publisher. No game business seem to be really committing to that full picture yet…
  - pornel 3y ago
    If the game is open source, you can add whatever items you want, without any blockchain nonsense.
    - erwinh 3y ago
      True from a pure solo experience perspective, blockhains are a social construct so only relevant between people. I can imagine e.g. wanting to matchmake against only those players in a tcg who will play with the cards they have on-chain.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > For example hearthstone, blizzard's warcraft tcg, would be much better for nft cards. It would get a second hand card market similar to MTG automatically if it used nft cards on some public blockchain. The experiment is going on right now. You can play MTGO or MTG Arena. Which one's more popular?
mattdesl 3y ago
I outlined some thoughts on how game NFTs could work, and provide benefits over current centralized models.[1] I don’t take much stock in play-to-earn or “playable bored apes” or whatever some publishers are currently investing in. [1] https://gist.github.com/mattdesl/ec2bf085b19407695b23cb90f6fdd2b7 https://gist.github.com/mattdesl/ec2bf085b19407695b23cb90f6f...
m00dy 3y ago
IMHO, it is not making sense to purchase in-game assets without the ownership. It is like paying for ebooks in kindle. But, what you get is actually right to read.
- nanidin 3y ago
  In my decade of paying for ebooks, I have yet to have any problems.
  - retrac 3y ago
    It is fortunate that the retailers you've chosen haven't messed up, or gone out of business, or been malicious. But so long as the ability to access the content is in their hands and determined on their end, it is an ongoing risk. It's hard to imagine today, but if Kindle ever stops being profitable for Amazon, it could all go away. Same risk exists with e.g. Valve's Steam. I have bought games there, and I've had no problems in 10+ years. But I won't kid myself. The games are all DRM'd. If something happens, say Valve goes kaput, bankrupt, well, all that money is wasted and I can't access anything that I supposedly bought. It's happened with DRM'd material before too many times already to imagine it's impossible.
    - josefx 3y ago
      > But so long as the ability to access the content is in their hands and determined on their end, it is an ongoing risk. And NFTs do nothing to change that, the moment the server hosting the content is offline your NFT is worthless. Of course the assumption is that someone else will start to host the content without getting paid and without actually holding the rights to the content. We already have that, it is called piracy and it works better without NFTs.
- KyeRussell 3y ago
  That’s absurd. It’s inside a video game. It’s all make-believe and inherently non-transferable, unlike an ebook. What would any afforded “ownership” actually mean in practical terms?
chaostheory 3y ago
I like crypto and I see value in some platforms, but this is just a BS cash grab. There are several issues why this is stupid: 1. You can't transfer the NFTs to different gaming platforms. 2. This is achievable without NFTs. It has been for years. 3. The gaming studios focused on NFTs and blockchain tend to ignore the core of gaming: how fun is the game?
- charcircuit 3y ago
  1. Other gaming platforms could add support to interface with it. 2. It's not the same. With these you actually own the NFT and won't lose it if game itself goes away and they stop supporting it. These virtual items will last forever. 3. The NFT part of games isn't about fun. The technology behind a game isn't just what makes the game fun. A game needing to be good will always be a problem.
  - devnullbrain 3y ago
    > 1. Other gaming platforms could add support to interface with it. Why would they?
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      Because they believe it will provide user value. If it doesn't then they won't.
  - p1necone 3y ago
    > It's not the same. With these you actually own the NFT and won't lose it if game itself goes away and they stop supporting it. These virtual items will last forever. If the game goes away you have a token saying you own something that doesn't do anything any more. This is like totaling a brand new Lamborghini and going "it's fine, I still have the keys in my pocket".
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      Even if the game doesn't exist that doesn't mean the value of all items drops to 0. Someone could come along later and setup a private server that lets you import all the items you had from the original game. Someone could also develop an application where you can view these items which you may have sentimental value for.
AraceliHarker 3y ago
I find no love for games in services like YouTube Gaming or Twitch. They seem to me like nothing more than influencer marketing schemes that use games as bait. It is no wonder, then, that some of their former executives are on the side of promoting NFTs for games. They have no respect for the artistry and creativity that goes into making games, only for the profit and popularity they can extract from them.
hnbad 3y ago
From the article: > Now nostalgic gaming brands like MapleStory, Neopets, and Atari are still trying to promote their blockchain initiatives [..] I'm not familiar with the history of MapleStory but Neopets was infamously sold off at the time and the only thing classic about Atari at this point is the name since it has been bought and sold numerous times since the classic period the name evokes. So I guess at least as far as these two names are concerned the obvious answer is "because people are sitting on those famous brand names they bought and still trying to figure out how to milk their nostalgia for money". In other words, they were a perfect match for the NFT cashgrab period and the companies owning those brands aren't willing to give up on that opportunity yet. Framing this as "classic gaming names [..] going in on the blockchain" evokes the idea of long-standing companies or even former giants turned underdogs seeing some kind of technological merit in the blockchain when instead it seems more like investors bought some IP and are desperate to find new ways to milk it. Of course in a way Neopets was the original ape NFT collection, just without the rampant money laundering and speculative investment ponzi scheme. EDIT: Looks like MapleStory is a pay-to-win/pay-to-play MMO so it's literally built around milking people for cash. So their motivation is pretty clear, too. None of these examples demonstrate any usefulness in blockchain (regardless of whether any such usefulness has been demonstrated elsewhere) beyond trying to get people to spend money.
j45 3y ago
Atari as a brand name was bought by someone new if I recall correctly
3327 3y ago
[dead]

17 points by acecreamu 3y ago

GauntletWizard 3y ago

Atari isn't a classic gaming name; it's the latest in a line of pretenders (4th?) Who have bought the name at auction.

KyeRussell 3y ago
That makes the name Atari a classic gaming name. You’re ignoring the actual headline to try to nerd snipe.
- hnbad 3y ago
  What do you think why they phrased it the way they did? Do you think most people reading the headline will think "ah, yes, the people who currently own the Atari brand but are completely detached from what the company that once held the name got famous for are still investing in blockchain tech despite its recent decline" or do you think they will think "oh wow, the company Atari that once was a household name in the 1980s and later went on to publish numerous games I like is still investing in blockchain tech despite its recent decline"? These two different takeaways have very different implications (random speculative investor vs former giant turned underdog). To put it another way, "elderly gentleman shares his opinion on invading Iran" and "former US secretary of defense shares his opinion on invading Iran" are two ways to break the same story and would likely both be factually correct but convey very different things about the merit of the opinion to the same audience (not taking the reader's personal biases into account). It's not nerd sniping. That's not even what nerd sniping means. It's also explicitly not ignoring the headline, it's ignoring the article.

proto-n 3y ago

Going against the usual knee jerk "crypto bad" reaction, I don't think nft-s are inherently bad in games. All the usual hatepoints (microtransactions, pay to win, developer still controls the use of the nfts, etc) are true or can be true with or without items being nfts. The difference I care about is tradability and transferability, which is inherent to nft-s but not to normal in-game items. For example hearthstone, blizzard's warcraft tcg, would be much better for nft cards. It would get a second hand card market similar to MTG automatically if it used nft cards on some public blockchain.

monero-xmr 3y ago
The only difference between an in-game economy where items are transferable and an NFT version is that you can withdraw the items to neutral third-party exchanges and you can see the total inventory of items in the game at all times. I think there are benefits to having an open economy. With the switch to proof-of-stake blockchains the environmental argument is moot. I don’t see what the big deal is with NFT hate other than a general push back against developers overly-monetizing (but then again, who will pay for servers?) and general hate for crypto.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
erwinh 3y ago
Stuff like this would be interesting but I think could only work if all art assets are then also uploaded to IPFS, game code is made open source so anyone could run/build/modify the game experience without any permission of the original publisher. No game business seem to be really committing to that full picture yet…
- pornel 3y ago
  If the game is open source, you can add whatever items you want, without any blockchain nonsense.
  - erwinh 3y ago
    True from a pure solo experience perspective, blockhains are a social construct so only relevant between people. I can imagine e.g. wanting to matchmake against only those players in a tcg who will play with the cards they have on-chain.
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> For example hearthstone, blizzard's warcraft tcg, would be much better for nft cards. It would get a second hand card market similar to MTG automatically if it used nft cards on some public blockchain. The experiment is going on right now. You can play MTGO or MTG Arena. Which one's more popular?

mattdesl 3y ago

I outlined some thoughts on how game NFTs could work, and provide benefits over current centralized models.[1] I don’t take much stock in play-to-earn or “playable bored apes” or whatever some publishers are currently investing in. [1] https://gist.github.com/mattdesl/ec2bf085b19407695b23cb90f6fdd2b7 https://gist.github.com/mattdesl/ec2bf085b19407695b23cb90f6f...

m00dy 3y ago

IMHO, it is not making sense to purchase in-game assets without the ownership. It is like paying for ebooks in kindle. But, what you get is actually right to read.

nanidin 3y ago
In my decade of paying for ebooks, I have yet to have any problems.
- retrac 3y ago
  It is fortunate that the retailers you've chosen haven't messed up, or gone out of business, or been malicious. But so long as the ability to access the content is in their hands and determined on their end, it is an ongoing risk. It's hard to imagine today, but if Kindle ever stops being profitable for Amazon, it could all go away. Same risk exists with e.g. Valve's Steam. I have bought games there, and I've had no problems in 10+ years. But I won't kid myself. The games are all DRM'd. If something happens, say Valve goes kaput, bankrupt, well, all that money is wasted and I can't access anything that I supposedly bought. It's happened with DRM'd material before too many times already to imagine it's impossible.
  - josefx 3y ago
    > But so long as the ability to access the content is in their hands and determined on their end, it is an ongoing risk. And NFTs do nothing to change that, the moment the server hosting the content is offline your NFT is worthless. Of course the assumption is that someone else will start to host the content without getting paid and without actually holding the rights to the content. We already have that, it is called piracy and it works better without NFTs.
KyeRussell 3y ago
That’s absurd. It’s inside a video game. It’s all make-believe and inherently non-transferable, unlike an ebook. What would any afforded “ownership” actually mean in practical terms?

chaostheory 3y ago

I like crypto and I see value in some platforms, but this is just a BS cash grab. There are several issues why this is stupid: 1. You can't transfer the NFTs to different gaming platforms. 2. This is achievable without NFTs. It has been for years. 3. The gaming studios focused on NFTs and blockchain tend to ignore the core of gaming: how fun is the game?

charcircuit 3y ago
1. Other gaming platforms could add support to interface with it. 2. It's not the same. With these you actually own the NFT and won't lose it if game itself goes away and they stop supporting it. These virtual items will last forever. 3. The NFT part of games isn't about fun. The technology behind a game isn't just what makes the game fun. A game needing to be good will always be a problem.
- devnullbrain 3y ago
  > 1. Other gaming platforms could add support to interface with it. Why would they?
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    Because they believe it will provide user value. If it doesn't then they won't.
- p1necone 3y ago
  > It's not the same. With these you actually own the NFT and won't lose it if game itself goes away and they stop supporting it. These virtual items will last forever. If the game goes away you have a token saying you own something that doesn't do anything any more. This is like totaling a brand new Lamborghini and going "it's fine, I still have the keys in my pocket".
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    Even if the game doesn't exist that doesn't mean the value of all items drops to 0. Someone could come along later and setup a private server that lets you import all the items you had from the original game. Someone could also develop an application where you can view these items which you may have sentimental value for.

AraceliHarker 3y ago

I find no love for games in services like YouTube Gaming or Twitch. They seem to me like nothing more than influencer marketing schemes that use games as bait. It is no wonder, then, that some of their former executives are on the side of promoting NFTs for games. They have no respect for the artistry and creativity that goes into making games, only for the profit and popularity they can extract from them.

hnbad 3y ago

From the article: > Now nostalgic gaming brands like MapleStory, Neopets, and Atari are still trying to promote their blockchain initiatives [..] I'm not familiar with the history of MapleStory but Neopets was infamously sold off at the time and the only thing classic about Atari at this point is the name since it has been bought and sold numerous times since the classic period the name evokes. So I guess at least as far as these two names are concerned the obvious answer is "because people are sitting on those famous brand names they bought and still trying to figure out how to milk their nostalgia for money". In other words, they were a perfect match for the NFT cashgrab period and the companies owning those brands aren't willing to give up on that opportunity yet. Framing this as "classic gaming names [..] going in on the blockchain" evokes the idea of long-standing companies or even former giants turned underdogs seeing some kind of technological merit in the blockchain when instead it seems more like investors bought some IP and are desperate to find new ways to milk it. Of course in a way Neopets was the original ape NFT collection, just without the rampant money laundering and speculative investment ponzi scheme. EDIT: Looks like MapleStory is a pay-to-win/pay-to-play MMO so it's literally built around milking people for cash. So their motivation is pretty clear, too. None of these examples demonstrate any usefulness in blockchain (regardless of whether any such usefulness has been demonstrated elsewhere) beyond trying to get people to spend money.

j45 3y ago

Atari as a brand name was bought by someone new if I recall correctly

3327 3y ago

[dead]