EVE Online’s success shows why gaming doesn’t need NFTs
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Right, because gimmicks are for stock holders, not customers.
Edit:
Also let me just go ahead and rant here about how stupid NFT are the in gaming space: we literally already had it, the ledger hosting was just the servers run by the company who made the game and the backing authority system just didn't use block chain, probably just a dumb set of tables in SQL that are like user => item mappings. People still already sold and bought these things with real money, and regardless of if they're block chain backed or not, they're still worthless if the game developer closes shop. You might make some argument that it allows game servers to be run by customers, but I think you'd still have problems with rouge servers potentially f'ing up the game economics.
NFT in Gaming is a gimmick, it does not serve the gamers, it doesn't really even serve the gaming companies implementing it, its a lot of work so that you can do #blockchain in your gd marketing tweets.
/end rant
Edit:
Also let me just go ahead and rant here about how stupid NFT are the in gaming space: we literally already had it, the ledger hosting was just the servers run by the company who made the game and the backing authority system just didn't use block chain, probably just a dumb set of tables in SQL that are like user => item mappings. People still already sold and bought these things with real money, and regardless of if they're block chain backed or not, they're still worthless if the game developer closes shop. You might make some argument that it allows game servers to be run by customers, but I think you'd still have problems with rouge servers potentially f'ing up the game economics.
NFT in Gaming is a gimmick, it does not serve the gamers, it doesn't really even serve the gaming companies implementing it, its a lot of work so that you can do #blockchain in your gd marketing tweets.
/end rant
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Good games/developers don't need blockchain.
Bad ones gotta try to make a buck somehow if they can't do it through quality products.
Bad ones gotta try to make a buck somehow if they can't do it through quality products.
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Considering some of the past (occasionally well meaning) pants on head stupid moves CCP has made in pleasantly surprised they are publicly shutting down that idea.
Not surprised enough to start playing again* mind you, but surprised nonetheless.
*Roughly four years clean from the mining barge addiction!
Not surprised enough to start playing again* mind you, but surprised nonetheless.
*Roughly four years clean from the mining barge addiction!
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I never really got into EVE Online, but hats off to them for not only surviving nearly twenty years in a niche that's been dominated by WoW, but also not bowing to trends or any real outside influences. It's rare that you see a developer gain an audience and stick by them without trying to appeal to every other person out there.
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It's funny: take your average crypto-bro and ask him if a communist planned economy could be viable and you'll probably get a distinct 'no'; propose that the emergent behavior of a system based on 'smart contracts' that you can't change after the fact will be totally manageable and work out well and he'll be linking his wallet to your rug pull faster than you can shove out a whitepaper.
Another day, another 'crypto-enthusiasts decide to learn from the mistakes of others by making them again'.
Another day, another 'crypto-enthusiasts decide to learn from the mistakes of others by making them again'.
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There's yet to be a gaming NFT usage where a database doesn't do, better / already is used for things like showing proof of ownership and so on.
I do think that EVE's nature of involving a lot of in game pyramid schemes and etc make for NFT integration even more risky. EVE's appeal and nature already plays with real money and less than honest dealings awfully close together.
Get any closer and things get complicated fast.
I do think that EVE's nature of involving a lot of in game pyramid schemes and etc make for NFT integration even more risky. EVE's appeal and nature already plays with real money and less than honest dealings awfully close together.
Get any closer and things get complicated fast.
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NFTs don't promise a thing. Even a game designed with them can, just like that, stop recognizing NFTs entirely. They can make a note of who owns what with one last scan of the block chain and then just stop checking it going entirely internal database from that day forward. OR, they could NOT do that, and just decide not to recognize any items on that chain at all any more. Or the game servers could get turned off.
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This is also true for real economies, not just ones in video games, and explains why crypto isn't appropriate for those use cases either.
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" Peter Molyneux promises "self-balancing mechanics" will help manage the economy of his upcoming NFT-based Legacy project."
Not that Molyneux legacy wasn´t tarnished, but such way to tarnish it even more, and further more.
This coming from shareholders- investors-publishers is understandables(self-interest/ignorance), but from seasoned developers, is unfathomable.
Not that Molyneux legacy wasn´t tarnished, but such way to tarnish it even more, and further more.
This coming from shareholders- investors-publishers is understandables(self-interest/ignorance), but from seasoned developers, is unfathomable.
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Statistical
Ars Legatus Legionis
I am never playing EVE anymore I just don't have the kind of time that takes but it is pretty cool a game I was playing 20 years ago is still around. Also yeah it doesn't require NFT. Due to permadeath assets in EVE have always been worth real money because time is worth money. CCP was smart enough to embrace that with regulated trade of dollars for in-game currency when most games were trying to pretend gold farming didn't exist.
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I don't think we needed EVE Online to show us why we don't need NFTs. I think there's an argument to be made that the fact that the video game industry passed the global movie industry in revenue years ago, before NFTs were ever in the conversation, proves that quite handily.
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Yeap, NFTs would be usable, if and that's a BIIIIIIG IF, those assets you bought could be exported out of the game and had any sort of value in other games or be traded out for real world money at anytime. However, the company would need rules on how often they create stuff / new objects. ie: crypto-currency is "rare" because it takes time to create a token and people create it. It has scarcity and it can be exchanged for cash via exchanges. If GameCompanyA sees that pink unicorn hats are the money makers and have no rules about just "printing" more to sell then they're worthless.
NFTs could work in a purely player driven economy where players are the ones creating those NFT objects, because then it's real work and time being put into it vs. just a fake money printing machine.
Not to mention that unless they offer a way to cash out at anytime and/or offer a "we'll pay X out when we decide to shutdown the servers" it's purely a money grab by the company's and just another marketing strategy to part fools with their money.
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If a company wanted to enable third-party game companies to "import" their assets, they could publish their item-ownership database publicly, so anyone could authenticate that "the user with this email address owns this item." Then other game companies could use that to issue items to those users. If you're asking yourself "why would third-party game companies ever want to do that?", you've found the real problem here.
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Totally agree. No company is going to make it easy or worthwhile to go to a competitor.
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serenity is not a test server. it's the dedicated chinese server licensed to a chinese publisher.
singularity has no relevant playerbase or economy to speak of (everything on singularity costs exactly 1 isk, including titans)
the domain where eve players see NFTs most likely to be deployed would be EVE Echoes, the mobile game
singularity has no relevant playerbase or economy to speak of (everything on singularity costs exactly 1 isk, including titans)
the domain where eve players see NFTs most likely to be deployed would be EVE Echoes, the mobile game
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The article almost seems to argue that a healthy economy requires that the focus should be on Main Street, not Wall Street and the central bank needs a monetary policy focused on stability, not the Next Financial Trick. What shall videogames teach us next?
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How exactly do you think they would tie ownership via an NFT that wouldn't allow for the exact same thing?
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I think it's relevant to mention that CCP has issued players NFTs of the killmails they received in the Alliance Tournament. However the NFTs have no presence in the game and are effectively equivalent to a shiny certificate mailed to the participants.
CCP makes a massive effort to stamp out unsanctioned real money trading (RMT) due to the pernicious effects it places on the game. Introducing NFTs would make that problem exponentially more difficult, so it would take a fundamental change in game management philosophy for CCP to end up making the mistake of including NFTs in EVE.
CCP makes a massive effort to stamp out unsanctioned real money trading (RMT) due to the pernicious effects it places on the game. Introducing NFTs would make that problem exponentially more difficult, so it would take a fundamental change in game management philosophy for CCP to end up making the mistake of including NFTs in EVE.
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I've been out of EVE for a while, so I'm kinda curious how the community feels about NFTs. EVE is very much a libertarian paradise in terms of gameplay, but as such the community has extensive experience with scams, betrayal, and the importance of trust and reputation. It seems like the perfect breeding ground for a player base where some would be NFT evangelists and others would be militantly against NFTs.
...I just imagined the NFT spam in Jita local chat *shudders*
...I just imagined the NFT spam in Jita local chat *shudders*
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I was about to also excerpt and note this.
Of course, the ideology that underpins much of the NFT space explicitly loathes/blithely ignores the reality, too.
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They know they would be dead in under a week if they do. I remember the "greed is good" campaign.
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Now expand this to any economic system, not just games, and you understand why crypto currency is a terrible choice as a currency.
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Snarky Robot
Ars Legatus Legionis
I never got into EVE, but I think most of it was because the stars never aligned. First I was too young to have interest (or spare money), then I had other games that interested me more (bright new shiny), and then too busy to really sink hours into it.
The only MMORPG I even played was Star Wars Galaxies, and the economy there was for utter shit in terms of balance. In some respects, it worked. The resources needed for certain items shifted every so often. Meaning my main, who was a hunter, had to keep up to date and know, for example, which avian meat was going to sell, because doctors making buffs could charge huge rates for massive, damn near game-breaking buffs. So, I worked, and I got lots of in-game money. I even stored large amounts of the "best" materials so I could sell it for more when the resources were less impressive.
But those buffs were stupid expensive, and in many ways mitigated the benefit of armors or other items. Mediocre armor with a near-perfect buff was better than great armor with an un-maxed buff. I had a crafting character, but the actual benefit of it was largely mitigated. That said, there WERE popular armorers and crafters, and the materials I provided were also used there, so that mattered as well.
The economy, though, primarily benefitted long-term players and didn't draw in anyone else. There were the other large problems with the game, but if you put a stronger economy into the game, you'd have had a lot more interest. To some extent, you want your first X-Wing to be something that gets you flying quickly. On the other hand, it just makes the whole thing easy and unsatisfying. There's something to be said about a robust move to get the best things, but also have a reasonable onboarding for new people.
Star Wars Galaxies had neither, really. The whole experience was tilted towards the long-term folks, and in ways that broke the ability for new people to have fun. And when the only thing you could buy was stuff that you already had (and largely didn't need), what was the point to the money?
In many ways, I miss that game, but damn did it need some tweaks to the economy.
The only MMORPG I even played was Star Wars Galaxies, and the economy there was for utter shit in terms of balance. In some respects, it worked. The resources needed for certain items shifted every so often. Meaning my main, who was a hunter, had to keep up to date and know, for example, which avian meat was going to sell, because doctors making buffs could charge huge rates for massive, damn near game-breaking buffs. So, I worked, and I got lots of in-game money. I even stored large amounts of the "best" materials so I could sell it for more when the resources were less impressive.
But those buffs were stupid expensive, and in many ways mitigated the benefit of armors or other items. Mediocre armor with a near-perfect buff was better than great armor with an un-maxed buff. I had a crafting character, but the actual benefit of it was largely mitigated. That said, there WERE popular armorers and crafters, and the materials I provided were also used there, so that mattered as well.
The economy, though, primarily benefitted long-term players and didn't draw in anyone else. There were the other large problems with the game, but if you put a stronger economy into the game, you'd have had a lot more interest. To some extent, you want your first X-Wing to be something that gets you flying quickly. On the other hand, it just makes the whole thing easy and unsatisfying. There's something to be said about a robust move to get the best things, but also have a reasonable onboarding for new people.
Star Wars Galaxies had neither, really. The whole experience was tilted towards the long-term folks, and in ways that broke the ability for new people to have fun. And when the only thing you could buy was stuff that you already had (and largely didn't need), what was the point to the money?
In many ways, I miss that game, but damn did it need some tweaks to the economy.
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The thing is, I'm not opposed to some kind of outside repository of who owns what digital content. The block chain and NFTs are not fit to this purpose. A typical database structure would do the job (typical by utterly massive database standards I mean). I would LOVE to have a database held in, say, the library of congress which other databases like iTunes, Steam, or moviesanywhere are legally obligated to sync their data with, providing a massive database of purchases. The companies would have it mandated, but individual users could keep it private if they wish. They could opt out of it preventing such digital sales from being uploaded and do so on a case by case basis. If they did opt in though, different stores that sell the same thing MUST recognize it. Buy your music on iTunes, and if it's also on Google's Play store, you'll be able to download that same song there too. Further, that database would allow trade between digital owners completely out of the control of any companies like Apple or Valve, yet they'd still be forced to recognize the new owners of said content after the trade is complete. Existing security for databases would be sufficient. No NFTs required, and all the benefits reaped from it would in fact be enforced by law, not "evading" it. Well, that, or we go post scarcity and do away with the idea of digital ownership entirely. I'll take either one really.
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Don't most of the players hate CCP now? Something about drastically and arbitrarily cutting back the supply of raw materials.
Anyway, you can add "Metaverse" and "play to earn", along with blockchain in general (NFT is just the latest attempt to make blockchain relevant) as sure signs that a game is a scam. There's been a bunch of these lately, and the only thing mysterious about them is when the rug pull happens.
Anyway, you can add "Metaverse" and "play to earn", along with blockchain in general (NFT is just the latest attempt to make blockchain relevant) as sure signs that a game is a scam. There's been a bunch of these lately, and the only thing mysterious about them is when the rug pull happens.
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That is already being done, no blockchain required. The most recent instance I've seen is FFXIV Teamcraft, where you can link your account to your Square Enix account in order to do things like filter crafting options by what your character can do and set your profile pic to your character's appearance. The real question is "Why do we need a zero trust system for something that inherently involves trust?" Blockchain is impressive in the abstract, but in every situation I've seen it proposed for, it either doesn't solve the problems its purported to solve, or more often those problems never existed. (Meanwhile it adds so many new problems!). It is neither necessary nor sufficient for adversarial interoperability, yet proponents keep pitching it as a magic bullet to enable adversarial interoperability. Moreover, it sounds like the only interoperability they can imagine is adversarial!
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Slightly OT: does anyone know what kind of visualization is being used by CCP for those slides with what appear to be constellations? They seem to convey something, but I'm having trouble understanding what.
For example: https://images.ctfassets.net/7lhcm73ukv ... region.png
For example: https://images.ctfassets.net/7lhcm73ukv ... region.png
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Come to think of it, years ago I had already "linked" my Steam account to my GOG account. The original idea was that I could unlock games in GOG if they were detected in Steam. Sadly "Connect" as a program is all but dead, but it really was a good idea. No NFTs required.
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I’m glad CCP came out and declared no NFTs in game for the foreseeable future. Focus on bringing value to the players not throwing in stupid gimmicks.
I’ve also never really seen how NFTs are functionally different than any other in game asset. It just looks like a huge money grab by developers. It’s just a shiner new gimmick to extract extra cash when the only difference between NFTs and other in game assets is the type of database used to verify the items integrity.
I’ve also never really seen how NFTs are functionally different than any other in game asset. It just looks like a huge money grab by developers. It’s just a shiner new gimmick to extract extra cash when the only difference between NFTs and other in game assets is the type of database used to verify the items integrity.
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The community has been almost universally opposed. CCP was publicly considering them at one point and they took a lot of heat for it
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Heck, you don't even need continuous streams of transactions to have successful games.
Not to make statements about specific developers outside of game design and publishing, but I bought Diablo 3 once, and then later I bought the expansion, again once. I bought The Witcher 3 once, and then bought the expansion content. Once. Granted, I later bought the same game on a couple other platforms, but that was on me.
It's clearly possible to have a standalone title be financially successful and provide continuous content for it without needing to nickel-and-dime your players.
Not to make statements about specific developers outside of game design and publishing, but I bought Diablo 3 once, and then later I bought the expansion, again once. I bought The Witcher 3 once, and then bought the expansion content. Once. Granted, I later bought the same game on a couple other platforms, but that was on me.
It's clearly possible to have a standalone title be financially successful and provide continuous content for it without needing to nickel-and-dime your players.
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They are the constellations in game. Values overlayed on the regional maps. Each Dot represents a solar system within the game
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I don't know whether anyone actually makes a profit there these days, but Entropia Universe is another non-NFT game that has been going for a couple of decades with a real money economy, and in its case cash-outs are game-legal.
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The constellations are just that, each of them is a region of space as seen on the in game EVE galaxy map. Each dot represents a solar system, and each line connecting the dots represents a stargate connection between the solar system. The distance between each solar system on the map also determines how much jump fuel it will take to jump a capital size ship between two solar systems without using the stargates.
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There are people far smarter and more knowledgable than me in chat and for them I have a question.
Do you foresee, once all the scams etc blow over, blockchain becoming a properly used tech in games? I can see how some would consider it a bit more resilient and a lot more open backbone for entitlements etc, but alas my knowledge of it is very very basic and worse probably partially wrong.
what are the thoughts of people in this comment section? Is it better than having a centralized server that holds user data like account inventory, cards, achievement badges etc?
Edit: can someone explain why I am getting downvotes for asking a question? I don’t care for the downvotes but am curious about the reason.
Do you foresee, once all the scams etc blow over, blockchain becoming a properly used tech in games? I can see how some would consider it a bit more resilient and a lot more open backbone for entitlements etc, but alas my knowledge of it is very very basic and worse probably partially wrong.
what are the thoughts of people in this comment section? Is it better than having a centralized server that holds user data like account inventory, cards, achievement badges etc?
Edit: can someone explain why I am getting downvotes for asking a question? I don’t care for the downvotes but am curious about the reason.
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