How Much Do You Think NFT's Will Be Injected into Gaming?

[Moonface]

If you've never heard of NFT's before reading this, congratulations on managing to avoid what I think is an awful idea that should be dropped into the fires of Mount Doom. Here's an explanation on the system if you can't be bothered to go searching for yourself. I'll be waiting with the imaginative red button if you wish to fantasize nuking this trend from orbit when you're done.

If you are already aware of NFT's (or just learned about them), then you'll know by now that these things have exploded over the last year on the internet to mixed reactions. Ethics and whatever else aside, these things do make money, and as we know, game companies love making money with things like DLC's, micro-transactions, etc. So of course NFT's are going to get on the radar of these companies. However, the responses are a mixed bag:

• EA calls NFT and blockchain games 'the future of our industry'
  
• Xbox chief wary of “exploitive” NFT gaming projects
  
• 29 blockchain game studios and groups blast Valve for NFT games ban
  
• GameStop memes even harder with ‘Web3 Gaming’ and NFT job listings
  
• Geoff Keighley says The Game Awards is not 'doing any NFT stuff'
  

I'm sure there's more, but you get the idea that despite the money these things have pulled in, it isn't being seen the same way as DLC's and whatnot are (universally okayed).

Unsurprisingly, EA is for the things and I'm sure a future FIFA game will slap stupid shit like soccer balls and player shirts behind NFT's. Maybe they'll even use it for that upcoming Dead Space remake and auction off unique limbs of the corpses of developers that didn't survive the last game they had to crunch on.
Valve being against them could be good though, since it would mean EA would hopefully be unable to have any games that feature NFT's available through that store front, and we all know how much PC gamers detest buying their games from anywhere but Steam or GOG (no idea what the latter's stance is on NFT's though).

I personally hope NFT's don't make their way into games, but it's pretty clear it will inevitably happen to some degree, so how much do you think it will spread throughout the industry? Will any companies that try NFT's be ripped apart until they backtrack like Discord had to recently when they teased NFT's for their platform? Or will the companies soldier on like Twitter apparently still is, in the hopes the income from the NFT's outweighs the losses from those who stop buying the games?

[Karo]

I'm really hoping that NFT die out but since crypto isn't fucking dead yet there always going to be some asshole peddling his "NFT" that are just sooooooo VALUABLE BECAUSE IT SAYS IT SO SCARCE AND TO OWN IT IS TRULY SOMETHING SPECIAL!

You know if you like NFTs I have a very non-fungible token for you if you give me $1 million dollars I will write your name on a piece of paper that CAN'T BE REPLICATED EVER and it will say that from now on you own this piece of paper that says you own my PS5 which I think is a great deal you can finally say you own a PS5 and never touch it or play it ever!

As for it eventual coming to video games....I personally won't buy any game that offer these and drop any game that drops these into it just because fuck them.

[Nightingale]

I had actually managed to avoid learning about these things until I started reading this thread (gee, thanks, Moony ) and my opinion is that game companies seem desperate to ruin the fun for everyone and sabotage themselves with easy cash-grabs such as these (and they have for such a long time) that I honestly wouldn't be surprised if a new VG Crash was on the way.

[Moonface]

As for it eventual coming to video games....I personally won't buy any game that offer these and drop any game that drops these into it just because fuck them.

Going to be dropping DbD then? 
In the defense of the developers they have no control over what the holders of the characters actually do, although if they have a say in what can be done in their own game by the holders of those characters then they could have denied NFT's being implemented in relation to their game.

I had actually managed to avoid learning about these things since I started reading this thread (gee, thanks, Moony ) and my opinion is that game companies seem desperate to ruin the fun for everyone and sabotage themselves with easy cash-grabs such as these (and they have for such a long time) that I honestly wouldn't be surprised if a new VG Crash was on the way.

I think a new videogame crash will be hard to happen. The industry has a much bigger scope than it did when the last crash happened so I think it would be more that certain companies would crash and burn rather than the entire industry, especially with all the independent developers out there.

[Karo]

Going forward if BHVR themselves start doing it I will drop Dead By Daylight, but I will also drop it if going forward they do another character license that is all about this NFT bullshit.

[Moonface]

Going forward if BHVR themselves start doing it I will drop Dead By Daylight, but I will also drop it if going forward they do another character license that is all about this NFT bullshit.

I wonder if going forward they'll actually try to find out up front about whether a license holder plans to do that stuff. I don't know if they knew up front for Pinhead but I've seen a decent number of people say they would not have purchased the character had they known it was going to be part of an NFT.

[Moonface]

To no surprise, Ubisoft have decided they will be adopting NFT's, but rather than it being in just the games they've gone ahead and made an entire platform centered around it called Quartz: https://www.gameinformer.com/2021/12/07/...yable-nfts

Ubisoft has announced its first step into bringing NFTs and blockchain technology into its games with the beta release of the Ubisoft Quartz platform. Starting on December 9, 12, and 15, Ghost Recon Breakpoint for PC will receive the first round of Digits, Ubisoft's name for playable, in-game NFTs.

Quartz is a mobile app that will facilitate the connection between the goods in your digital wallets and Ubisoft's games that will use the NFT cosmetics called Digits. It's considered a test of the technology right now, but eventually, Ubisoft's goal is to have these Digits move from game to game, allowing players to use and show off their unique gear outside of Breakpoint.

In their announcement, Ubisoft also addressed the concerns that NFT's generate over energy consumption:

In our presentation with the members of the Strategic Innovation Lab at Ubisoft, it was made clear the company's current stance on using the tech was contingent on it being energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Therefore, Quartz and Digits are using the Tezos blockchain for these digital items, which is using the Proof of Stake method of verifying transactions and recording them to the blockchain ledger. According to Ubisoft, Quartz transactions "consumes 1 million times less than a Bitcoin transaction," a considerably big difference compared to other crypto-tied goods.

I agree with Game Informer's sentiment in their article about Ubisoft trying to be conscious about the energy consumption of their NFT's, and I would hope they would adopt even better techniques as time progresses, should that become a thing.

My gut reaction to this was "Of course they are..." and while that sentiment hasn't changed, I'm not viewing this as badly as I did going into it. Shame they couldn't be that conscientious about their workplace issues but at least they didn't take the worst approach with handling this too, which I guess is something considering the alternative.

[Dragon Lord]

A New Year's letter from the Square Enix president talks about new tech/concepts including NFTs, the metaverse, and particularly how blockchain games "hold the potential to enable self-sustaining game growth

For anyone wondering which company would look to inject their games with this bullshit the fastest, Square Enix has you covered.

Not surprised at all.

[Moonface]

Well they're not the first company since Ubisoft already had a whole system in place for it (that is doing horribly last I checked) and I know some other games have announced NFT stuff and then in some cases promptly backpedaled.

I'm not really sure why any of these companies still think it's a good idea to make announcements about adding this stuff to their games after how many others have done it and all have resulted in PR disasters.

[Moonface]

I guess Sega talked about NFT's back in November judging by this article that came out today, which talks about Sega promising to avoid NFT's if gamers think it's a money-making scheme. I don't know what NFT discussion is like in Japan but if it's as notable as everywhere else then Sega looks pretty ignorant for thinking gamers (and non-gamers) view NFT's as anything but a money-making scheme. I'm sure any reception to this new article will give Sega all the information they need for what people will think about them pursuing NFT's, just as every other company has had to find out the hard way.

I do find it funny how Sega will avoid NFT's if they're seen as a money-making scheme but microtransactions out the arse doesn't fall under that for them I guess?

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Oh, meanwhile it seems Konami is selling NFT's to celebrate Castlevania's 35th anniversary: https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/konam...-with-nfts
Konami is also considering whether to sell NFT's based on their other classic franchises too, which I can't say is surprising. You'd think they would have run out of ways to drag their IP's through the mud but they just keep finding ways.

[WR91]

Hopefully not much. But I won't be supporting any game that has NFT's in them. So I really couldn't care less about it.

[Nomad]

I play a couple of NFT games like Sandbox and Decentraland. While Sandbox is free, Decentraland cost money. I am yet to make a substantial amount of tokens and NFTs by playing these games. I think NFT game is the future of gaming.