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That's exactly what we've been trying to build at Ultra.io The push back from gamers has been non-stop and intense. I don't get it. They are willing to buy dig

That's exactly what we've been trying to build at Ultra.io The push back from gamers has been non-stop and intense. I don't get it. They are willing to buy digital assets which can't be resold on an open market. They are not willing to buy digital assets that can. It's kind of bonkers.

throwaway1777 3y ago
Because people want to play games that are fun not grind on some play to earn scheme or cash grab. turning games into marketplaces often ruins the fun.
tmpz22 3y ago
Most gamers aren’t whales. Most gamers don’t want NFTs polluting an already stagnating games industry as they recognize those psychological levers preyed on through MTX mechanics are just wrong and at their worst reflect the worst aspects of the gambling industry.
edent 3y ago
Because there's no guarantee that those assets will be respected. At any point the game maker can say "V1 assets aren't supported in V2". Or they can flood the market with "rare" items. Or they'll buy an item which was "stolen" and have it unilaterally revoked. Or... the list goes on. There's also zero possibility of cross-game use. If ID releases the BFG9000 for free, is Skyrim going to let you shoot that at dragons? But, here's the thing, don't listen to me. Listen to your (potential) customers. If they're all telling you that they don't want to buy what you're selling then take that as a sign.
- acdha 3y ago
  Just to expand on your last point, I read their ad copy and once you strip out all of the meaningless filler text you have this key quote: “with the permission of the developer”. If they weren’t going to do it before, this can’t force them and if they were, they don’t need it. As a game buyer, that sounds like doubling the number of companies who need to be paid and whose business decisions or failure will break things, add additional fees, etc. “Our incredible journey” is another way to say “you’re going to get server errors if you try to use your purchases”. As a game developer, that sounds like I still have to do almost all of the work but now I’m locking in payments and giving up some control of my business to another party whose interests only partially correlate with mine or my partner developers’. In both cases, there doesn’t seem to be enough value to support a sustainable business. Any two game developers are going to need to collaborate to share anything between games, and there’s a really upper bound on how much money they’ll pay before cutting out the middleman starts to look really compelling. Similarly, many gamers don’t like pay to win and won’t pay anything for cosmetic items so you’re chasing the percentage of people who both do and are willing to pay more upfront and more later despite not even knowing what future games would offer that option or how much they’ll charge.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    Total rent seeking.
idiotsecant 3y ago
I think the people who would buy skins are unlikely to push back. The more vocal pushback is probably from people who, rightfully so, hate the micro-transaction game model. I play games to escape from capitalism, not to be forced to participate in the worst variant of it or face the choice of not being able to play at the same tier as everyone else. Micro-transactions in general are gross. NFT backed micro-transactions are not more or less gross, but they're still gross by association./
DonHopkins 3y ago
And how about the push-back from game developers who don't want to spend the extra incredible amount of work they would have to invest to enable importing digital assets from other games to unbalance and pollute their own games and cut into their revenue? If you were an actual game developer yourself, this would be obvious to you. >The push back from gamers has been non-stop and intense. I don't get it. It's quite obvious why, so you should get it, but I'm afraid you never will, if your income depends on not getting it, and you prefer to ignore all the wise and precious "non-stop and intense push back from gamers" you're getting, and dispariage your reluctant potential customers as "bonkers", because you think you know better than they do when it comes to them spending their money on your NFT scams to line your pockets at their expense. If you were an actual game player yourself, this would be obvious to you. But if you were either, then it would be easy for you to understand the totally justified contempt that both game developers and game players have for all the crypto-bros who have invaded the game industry with their Web 3.0 bullshit, who have absolutely no idea what it's like to develop or play a game, who just want to push their NFT get-rich-quick pyramid schemes and rug pulls, and see game developers and players as suckers to be exploited. It's been more than a year since "Line Goes Up" and Christopher Natsuume's videos came out. Please don't tell me you haven't heard of them or been able to find enough time in your busy schedule of shilling NFTs to watch them. Nobody believes what you're shilling any more. Time to stop. Please stop pretending you don't know the gig is up. Line Goes Up – The Problem With NFTs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g >If someone pitches you on a "great" Web3 project, ask them if it requires buying or selling crypto to do what they say it does. Let me explain Blockchain gaming and Play-to-Earn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKzup7XDyq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKzup7XDyq8 >NFTs are a pure scam. Blockchain gaming is a pyramid scheme. Play-to-Earn is not only a scam, it's deeply immoral. Using NFTs to own ingame objects: Also pretty much a scam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IYjsWBbmKI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IYjsWBbmKI >In this video, I'd like to clarify and further explain: Using NFTs to own ingame objects is an unnecessarily inefficient byproduct of a larger scam. Sources and Further Reading recommended by Folding Issues: https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://tante.cc/2021/12/17/the-third-web/ https://tante.cc/2021/12/17/the-third-web/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/03/11/nfts-crypto-grifters-try-to-scam-artists-again/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/03/11/nfts-crypto-... https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buyer-and-his-nft-defi-scheme/ https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beepl... https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-absurd.html https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-absurd.html https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchains-are-not-what-they-say/ https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchains-are-not-what-they-sa... https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/who-goes-crypto-eth-bitcoin-etc-financialization-gamestop-class-wealth/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/who-goes-crypto... https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017698676228099?s=20 https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017698676228099?s=20 https://davidgolumbia.medium.com/cryptocurrency-is-garbage-so-is-blockchain-3e80078e77fe https://davidgolumbia.medium.com/cryptocurrency-is-garbage-s... https://marker.medium.com/fintech-is-a-scam-a-listicle-in-eight-parts-7b6161f3a35a https://marker.medium.com/fintech-is-a-scam-a-listicle-in-ei... https://naavik.co/deep-dives/axie-infinity/#axie-decon= https://naavik.co/deep-dives/axie-infinity/#axie-decon= https://www.gawker.com/culture/the-future-is-useless-expensive https://www.gawker.com/culture/the-future-is-useless-expensi... https://twitter.com/NFTtheft https://twitter.com/NFTtheft https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-werent-supposed-end-like/618488/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-weren... https://www.gamesindustry.biz/baseless-nft-hype-hits-a-crescendo-but-its-play-to-earn-thats-worth-watching-opinion https://www.gamesindustry.biz/baseless-nft-hype-hits-a-cresc... https://www.technollama.co.uk/platform-is-law-the-cautionary-tale-of-stolen-nfts https://www.technollama.co.uk/platform-is-law-the-cautionary... https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/02/12/libra-shrugged-chapter-6-banking-the-unbanked/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/02/12/libra-shrugg... https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed
nradov 3y ago
There is push back because it's not a viable business plan and will never work with the most popular games. Games are controlled by publishers. They want to completely own the market for skins and other virtual assets. Why would they ever share their revenue with you guys? What's in it for them? If you want to succeed with this scheme then ultimately you need to produce your own games. And those will have to be games that people actually enjoy playing, not just grinding for worthless coins.
- duskwuff 3y ago
  > They want to completely own the market for skins and other virtual assets. Why would they ever share their revenue with you guys? Or, even worse: why would a game publisher share some of the revenue for in-game purchases with customers who have lost interest in the game and are selling off their items?
  - threeseed 3y ago
    Or, even worse: why would a game publisher share some of the revenue for in-game purchases with customers who have no interest in the game and are simply trying to profit off the customers who do?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jncfhnb 3y ago
You ever go buy a shirt and have the counter guy ask you if you’d like to register the shirt in a marketplace? I don’t want to think of my shirt as a sellable asset.
- mattdesl 3y ago
  Gamers spend millions on registering assets in marketplaces: game skins, mods, extensions, assets, it is all just buying records of ownership, but in a centralized company-owned database rather than distributed ledger.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    That’s not the point. People do not want to think of the things they buy as sellable assets. It’s just a shirt. Just let me buy it. I give zero fucks about your choice of backend data storage.
    - mattdesl 3y ago
      I see—you are saying gamers don’t really care about whether an asset is sellable; but the same is true of most things we purchase. When we buy a book or a vinyl record, we don’t think about its market value, until the day we stop needing/wanting it and realize selling could provide us some return. In those moments, it’s nice that there is no company that can block you from selling on the open market. Many gamers would appreciate this (and do, when they are given the ability to refund digital purchases they no longer want/use).
      - jncfhnb 3y ago
        No, you don’t see. People don’t want their stuff to be sellable.
kevingadd 3y ago
I spend plenty of money in games on stuff like DLC or skins or unlockable characters and the idea of reselling them on an "open market" or having their price be subject to the whims of the market is thoroughly unappealing. If I want to make a profit why would I do that in the wild west with video game skins instead of real regulated markets where I'm far less likely to get scammed? I buy skins or spend money to unlock characters because I like them and want to use them. Furthermore skin resale markets and skin gambling (the two tend to be connected) mean we're roping young gamers into gambling and gambling-adjacent stuff at a young age before their brains are mature enough to handle it. It's disgusting. As a game developer, also, it just doesn't make sense. Giving skins resale value means that now I can never revise them or patch them out of the game, no matter the reason. Even worse, it cuts the value of each skin I sell because now a player who quits can unload all their skins first which means I earn less revenue off new players.

throwaway1777 3y ago

Because people want to play games that are fun not grind on some play to earn scheme or cash grab. turning games into marketplaces often ruins the fun.

tmpz22 3y ago

Most gamers aren’t whales. Most gamers don’t want NFTs polluting an already stagnating games industry as they recognize those psychological levers preyed on through MTX mechanics are just wrong and at their worst reflect the worst aspects of the gambling industry.

edent 3y ago

Because there's no guarantee that those assets will be respected. At any point the game maker can say "V1 assets aren't supported in V2". Or they can flood the market with "rare" items. Or they'll buy an item which was "stolen" and have it unilaterally revoked. Or... the list goes on. There's also zero possibility of cross-game use. If ID releases the BFG9000 for free, is Skyrim going to let you shoot that at dragons? But, here's the thing, don't listen to me. Listen to your (potential) customers. If they're all telling you that they don't want to buy what you're selling then take that as a sign.

acdha 3y ago
Just to expand on your last point, I read their ad copy and once you strip out all of the meaningless filler text you have this key quote: “with the permission of the developer”. If they weren’t going to do it before, this can’t force them and if they were, they don’t need it. As a game buyer, that sounds like doubling the number of companies who need to be paid and whose business decisions or failure will break things, add additional fees, etc. “Our incredible journey” is another way to say “you’re going to get server errors if you try to use your purchases”. As a game developer, that sounds like I still have to do almost all of the work but now I’m locking in payments and giving up some control of my business to another party whose interests only partially correlate with mine or my partner developers’. In both cases, there doesn’t seem to be enough value to support a sustainable business. Any two game developers are going to need to collaborate to share anything between games, and there’s a really upper bound on how much money they’ll pay before cutting out the middleman starts to look really compelling. Similarly, many gamers don’t like pay to win and won’t pay anything for cosmetic items so you’re chasing the percentage of people who both do and are willing to pay more upfront and more later despite not even knowing what future games would offer that option or how much they’ll charge.
- TylerE 3y ago
  Total rent seeking.

idiotsecant 3y ago

I think the people who would buy skins are unlikely to push back. The more vocal pushback is probably from people who, rightfully so, hate the micro-transaction game model. I play games to escape from capitalism, not to be forced to participate in the worst variant of it or face the choice of not being able to play at the same tier as everyone else. Micro-transactions in general are gross. NFT backed micro-transactions are not more or less gross, but they're still gross by association./

DonHopkins 3y ago

And how about the push-back from game developers who don't want to spend the extra incredible amount of work they would have to invest to enable importing digital assets from other games to unbalance and pollute their own games and cut into their revenue? If you were an actual game developer yourself, this would be obvious to you. >The push back from gamers has been non-stop and intense. I don't get it. It's quite obvious why, so you should get it, but I'm afraid you never will, if your income depends on not getting it, and you prefer to ignore all the wise and precious "non-stop and intense push back from gamers" you're getting, and dispariage your reluctant potential customers as "bonkers", because you think you know better than they do when it comes to them spending their money on your NFT scams to line your pockets at their expense. If you were an actual game player yourself, this would be obvious to you. But if you were either, then it would be easy for you to understand the totally justified contempt that both game developers and game players have for all the crypto-bros who have invaded the game industry with their Web 3.0 bullshit, who have absolutely no idea what it's like to develop or play a game, who just want to push their NFT get-rich-quick pyramid schemes and rug pulls, and see game developers and players as suckers to be exploited. It's been more than a year since "Line Goes Up" and Christopher Natsuume's videos came out. Please don't tell me you haven't heard of them or been able to find enough time in your busy schedule of shilling NFTs to watch them. Nobody believes what you're shilling any more. Time to stop. Please stop pretending you don't know the gig is up. Line Goes Up – The Problem With NFTs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g >If someone pitches you on a "great" Web3 project, ask them if it requires buying or selling crypto to do what they say it does. Let me explain Blockchain gaming and Play-to-Earn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKzup7XDyq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKzup7XDyq8 >NFTs are a pure scam. Blockchain gaming is a pyramid scheme. Play-to-Earn is not only a scam, it's deeply immoral. Using NFTs to own ingame objects: Also pretty much a scam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IYjsWBbmKI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IYjsWBbmKI >In this video, I'd like to clarify and further explain: Using NFTs to own ingame objects is an unnecessarily inefficient byproduct of a larger scam. Sources and Further Reading recommended by Folding Issues: https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://tante.cc/2021/12/17/the-third-web/ https://tante.cc/2021/12/17/the-third-web/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/03/11/nfts-crypto-grifters-try-to-scam-artists-again/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/03/11/nfts-crypto-... https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buyer-and-his-nft-defi-scheme/ https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beepl... https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-absurd.html https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-absurd.html https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchains-are-not-what-they-say/ https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchains-are-not-what-they-sa... https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/who-goes-crypto-eth-bitcoin-etc-financialization-gamestop-class-wealth/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/who-goes-crypto... https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017698676228099?s=20 https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017698676228099?s=20 https://davidgolumbia.medium.com/cryptocurrency-is-garbage-so-is-blockchain-3e80078e77fe https://davidgolumbia.medium.com/cryptocurrency-is-garbage-s... https://marker.medium.com/fintech-is-a-scam-a-listicle-in-eight-parts-7b6161f3a35a https://marker.medium.com/fintech-is-a-scam-a-listicle-in-ei... https://naavik.co/deep-dives/axie-infinity/#axie-decon= https://naavik.co/deep-dives/axie-infinity/#axie-decon= https://www.gawker.com/culture/the-future-is-useless-expensive https://www.gawker.com/culture/the-future-is-useless-expensi... https://twitter.com/NFTtheft https://twitter.com/NFTtheft https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-werent-supposed-end-like/618488/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-weren... https://www.gamesindustry.biz/baseless-nft-hype-hits-a-crescendo-but-its-play-to-earn-thats-worth-watching-opinion https://www.gamesindustry.biz/baseless-nft-hype-hits-a-cresc... https://www.technollama.co.uk/platform-is-law-the-cautionary-tale-of-stolen-nfts https://www.technollama.co.uk/platform-is-law-the-cautionary... https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/02/12/libra-shrugged-chapter-6-banking-the-unbanked/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/02/12/libra-shrugg... https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed

nradov 3y ago

There is push back because it's not a viable business plan and will never work with the most popular games. Games are controlled by publishers. They want to completely own the market for skins and other virtual assets. Why would they ever share their revenue with you guys? What's in it for them? If you want to succeed with this scheme then ultimately you need to produce your own games. And those will have to be games that people actually enjoy playing, not just grinding for worthless coins.

duskwuff 3y ago
> They want to completely own the market for skins and other virtual assets. Why would they ever share their revenue with you guys? Or, even worse: why would a game publisher share some of the revenue for in-game purchases with customers who have lost interest in the game and are selling off their items?
- threeseed 3y ago
  Or, even worse: why would a game publisher share some of the revenue for in-game purchases with customers who have no interest in the game and are simply trying to profit off the customers who do?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jncfhnb 3y ago

You ever go buy a shirt and have the counter guy ask you if you’d like to register the shirt in a marketplace? I don’t want to think of my shirt as a sellable asset.

mattdesl 3y ago
Gamers spend millions on registering assets in marketplaces: game skins, mods, extensions, assets, it is all just buying records of ownership, but in a centralized company-owned database rather than distributed ledger.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  That’s not the point. People do not want to think of the things they buy as sellable assets. It’s just a shirt. Just let me buy it. I give zero fucks about your choice of backend data storage.
  - mattdesl 3y ago
    I see—you are saying gamers don’t really care about whether an asset is sellable; but the same is true of most things we purchase. When we buy a book or a vinyl record, we don’t think about its market value, until the day we stop needing/wanting it and realize selling could provide us some return. In those moments, it’s nice that there is no company that can block you from selling on the open market. Many gamers would appreciate this (and do, when they are given the ability to refund digital purchases they no longer want/use).
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      No, you don’t see. People don’t want their stuff to be sellable.

kevingadd 3y ago

I spend plenty of money in games on stuff like DLC or skins or unlockable characters and the idea of reselling them on an "open market" or having their price be subject to the whims of the market is thoroughly unappealing. If I want to make a profit why would I do that in the wild west with video game skins instead of real regulated markets where I'm far less likely to get scammed? I buy skins or spend money to unlock characters because I like them and want to use them. Furthermore skin resale markets and skin gambling (the two tend to be connected) mean we're roping young gamers into gambling and gambling-adjacent stuff at a young age before their brains are mature enough to handle it. It's disgusting. As a game developer, also, it just doesn't make sense. Giving skins resale value means that now I can never revise them or patch them out of the game, no matter the reason. Even worse, it cuts the value of each skin I sell because now a player who quits can unload all their skins first which means I earn less revenue off new players.