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All NFT based items have the same problem where these items rely on the goodwill of the people who make the games and they're the ones that end up deciding whet

All NFT based items have the same problem where these items rely on the goodwill of the people who make the games and they're the ones that end up deciding whether the item has any practical value or if it's even in the game in the first place. If I were a game dev I'd have no incentive to implement some foreign NFTs in the game when I can make my own NFTs or just go with the classic model where the items are just entries in one of my databases. There's also a conflict of interest in where someone who is both a dev and has a lot of certain NFTs could attempt to make the in-game item busted or required for competitive meta in order to sell out their stock of NFTs at a high price. The "card game with NFTs" has already been tried, it's called "Gods Unchained" and didn't really catch on because if you type "Gods Unchained" in YouTube search bar the top results are not about the game itself but about the fact that you can earn money in-game. People actually interested in playing the game end up playing with bots because the game has a profit incentive.

proto-n 3y ago
> these items rely on the goodwill of the people who make the games But they rely on the goodwill of the game devs regardless of the items being NFT-s. Patches causing meta changes is a regular thing without NFT-s. > someone who is both a dev and has a lot of certain NFTs could attempt to make the in-game item busted or required for competitive meta in order to sell Or just do the same and sell the card in the in-game store for lots of $? As lots of mobile games do.
- GTP 3y ago
  Yes, so what added value do NFTs bring to the table after all?
xk_id 3y ago
> If I were a game dev I'd have no incentive to implement some foreign NFTs in the game By implementing some foreign NFTs you can bootstrap an existing userbase (especially one with clear on chain evidence for engaging with a similar game). Another incentive can be satisfying the presumed demand for interoperable assets, such as avatars (being able to play with the same avatar in different games).
- ManlyBread 3y ago
  This all sounds cool in theory but I'd like to point out that NFTs have existed for quite a while now and so far none of these things have ever been implemented in any of the released games. Which makes me doubtful that people are interested in these kinds of solutions in the first place.
- GTP 3y ago
  You can have interoperable assets without using a blockchain at all.
  - xk_id 3y ago
    How exactly? I’m not aware of any other technology/set of standards for this use case that are implemented and operational right now.
    - GTP 3y ago
      I'm not aware of any set of games that let you transfer items among them using a blockchain either, but this doesn't matter. Here's how it could work. First of all, before being able to transfer items there's some preparatory work that needs to be done, regardless of whether you're going to use a blockchain or not. You need the various game designers to agree on a common format to encode those items, so that the different games will be able to parse the data when trying to import a new item. Ideally, you would like everyone to agree on a single format, but even having just a few groups of developers to agree on one fixed format wouldn't be easy. After that, you have to solve two game design issues: which items makes sense to transfer from a particular game to a particular other game and how to map the different attributes between the two games in a meaningful way. As an example of the first problem, imagine what would happen if you were allowed to tranfer automatic rifles from Call of Duty to a RPG game where you are supposed to fight using a sword and a shield: you would ruin the latter game. As an example of the second issue, I never plaied World of Warcraft, but I think that WoW swords have very different attributes from Minecraft swords, even if on a superficial level we're talking about the same item, i.e. a sword. Note that this preparatory work is the hardest part to do, because it isn't a mere technical problem but involves many other aspects. And you need this regardless of the actual technology that you're going to use to transfer the items. After we solved the above problems we get to the transfer part. Sure, you could use a blockchain, but do you really need it? Here's an alternative way: when the user decides to transfer an item from game A to game B, game A's server sends a message to game B's server saying: "User X wants to transfer item Y, here's a description of item Y in the format we agreed upon. Do you accept the transfer?". Assuming that we solved the initial problems, implementing such a protocol is easy enough that most BSc students could do it as part of a software engineering course. A possible question could be how the two games would know that they are talking about the same user. There are different possible solutions to this, an easy one could be to use OAuth to authenticate the user. In the end, the proposal of using blockchains to transfer game items is little more than using a blockchain as a database.

proto-n 3y ago

> these items rely on the goodwill of the people who make the games But they rely on the goodwill of the game devs regardless of the items being NFT-s. Patches causing meta changes is a regular thing without NFT-s. > someone who is both a dev and has a lot of certain NFTs could attempt to make the in-game item busted or required for competitive meta in order to sell Or just do the same and sell the card in the in-game store for lots of $? As lots of mobile games do.

GTP 3y ago
Yes, so what added value do NFTs bring to the table after all?

xk_id 3y ago

> If I were a game dev I'd have no incentive to implement some foreign NFTs in the game By implementing some foreign NFTs you can bootstrap an existing userbase (especially one with clear on chain evidence for engaging with a similar game). Another incentive can be satisfying the presumed demand for interoperable assets, such as avatars (being able to play with the same avatar in different games).

ManlyBread 3y ago
This all sounds cool in theory but I'd like to point out that NFTs have existed for quite a while now and so far none of these things have ever been implemented in any of the released games. Which makes me doubtful that people are interested in these kinds of solutions in the first place.
GTP 3y ago
You can have interoperable assets without using a blockchain at all.
- xk_id 3y ago
  How exactly? I’m not aware of any other technology/set of standards for this use case that are implemented and operational right now.
  - GTP 3y ago
    I'm not aware of any set of games that let you transfer items among them using a blockchain either, but this doesn't matter. Here's how it could work. First of all, before being able to transfer items there's some preparatory work that needs to be done, regardless of whether you're going to use a blockchain or not. You need the various game designers to agree on a common format to encode those items, so that the different games will be able to parse the data when trying to import a new item. Ideally, you would like everyone to agree on a single format, but even having just a few groups of developers to agree on one fixed format wouldn't be easy. After that, you have to solve two game design issues: which items makes sense to transfer from a particular game to a particular other game and how to map the different attributes between the two games in a meaningful way. As an example of the first problem, imagine what would happen if you were allowed to tranfer automatic rifles from Call of Duty to a RPG game where you are supposed to fight using a sword and a shield: you would ruin the latter game. As an example of the second issue, I never plaied World of Warcraft, but I think that WoW swords have very different attributes from Minecraft swords, even if on a superficial level we're talking about the same item, i.e. a sword. Note that this preparatory work is the hardest part to do, because it isn't a mere technical problem but involves many other aspects. And you need this regardless of the actual technology that you're going to use to transfer the items. After we solved the above problems we get to the transfer part. Sure, you could use a blockchain, but do you really need it? Here's an alternative way: when the user decides to transfer an item from game A to game B, game A's server sends a message to game B's server saying: "User X wants to transfer item Y, here's a description of item Y in the format we agreed upon. Do you accept the transfer?". Assuming that we solved the initial problems, implementing such a protocol is easy enough that most BSc students could do it as part of a software engineering course. A possible question could be how the two games would know that they are talking about the same user. There are different possible solutions to this, an easy one could be to use OAuth to authenticate the user. In the end, the proposal of using blockchains to transfer game items is little more than using a blockchain as a database.