[Article] Good job, internet: You bullied NFTs out of mainstream games

[hatshepsut93]

Good job, internet: You bullied NFTs out of mainstream games

Beneath the common complaints that they're environmentally costly and more or less stupid, I think NFTs inspire so much repulsion on social media because they seem to corrupt something that people actually do want. Sameness is everywhere in this era of mass production, and what started on assembly lines was near-perfected by computers, which can duplicate data near-instantly. From that perspective, the scarcity and uniqueness of NFTs might be seen as subversive: They're pushing against the current of history. It feels like something could be cool about that, somehow. But not thishow. While individual NFTs are unique, the obvious goal of corporations is to do what they always do and mass produce that uniqueness. The majority of NFTs are just another kind of mass-made plastic tchotchke, or commemorative gold coin like the ones sold on TV at 2 am. They contain nothing that's good about handmade, one-of-a-kind items; all they do is irradiate the concept with high-grade art collector snobbery and Beanie Baby-style financial speculation. What is a "Web3 fan" but a fan of buying and owning things? Isn't this about art?

I think the internet's NFT bullying has had an effect on mainstream game publishers: If we'd all just shrugged, they'd have tried way more NFT gun skins by now. Even if it hasn't, though, maybe making fun of stuff online is something we do for each other, to remind us all of what's real and validate the overwhelming feeling that it's all very stupid. And I think that's beautiful.

The comments on reddit are also interesting:

It has more to do with NFT and crypto currency markets tanking than with internet shaming.

The internet ridiculed microtransactions (see: Horse Armor) and that didn't do jack shit to stop them because they still made money.

NFTs could have been the most openly mocked "feature" to ever be brought to the industry and we'd be neck deep in them if they were at all profitable.

I think success of NFT is tied to success of crypto, without adoption of Ethereum or other platforms that host NFTs, they couldn't become widely popular. And crypto is not getting actually used in real world, almost all crypto activity is just speculation and a game of a bigger fool. So, it was inevitable that NFT adoption in mainstream gaming has failed. But it's good that the gamers took a stance and pushed back against them.

[1714250068]

1714250068

[1714250068]

1714250068

[1714250068]

1714250068

[Hispo]

...
I think success of NFT is tied to success of crypto, without adoption of Ethereum or other platforms that host NFTs, they couldn't become widely popular. And crypto is not getting actually used in real world, almost all crypto activity is just speculation and a game of a bigger fool. So, it was inevitable that NFT adoption in mainstream gaming has failed. But it's good that the gamers took a stance and pushed back against them.

My opinion is that everything started to go downhill when the concept of "Play-to-earn" became popular.
NFT's have legitimate applications in the real world but the concept was over exploited last year and it became some kind of gold rush to nowhere.

It was natural that the video game players backlashed the way they did, developers did not care to offer actual value to their tokens, it was just a cash grab by companies like Ubisoft, Konami and Square Enix (which to this day still is trying to push the NFT's).

As Ethereum moves forward, we could see new applications to the main chain which are over publicized as the "new thing", not actually caring to the technological potential, only the profit opportunity.

[mk4]

NFTs are just infrastructure. Why did NFTs failed with games? Because the games suck in the first place and there is less incentive for game companies to have openly tradable items/characters/tickets/etc. As evident with current trending games, the best(revenue-wise) model is to have in-game items untradable.

[bettercrypto]

    I remember when play-to-earn attracted many people who were attracted to it, as far as I know, that noise started when axie infinity became trending, and what I encountered was the crypto blade that somehow I can say that I got some income in just one week I also made a profit of around 1300$ more, then many people enjoyed this style.

 After a few months it didn't become popular, but many mainstream influencers were promoting pay-to-earn games during these times, but from what I saw for the sake of promoting their channel only.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

The quote below is the one that stuck out to me as seeing right through the argument that criticism from people on the internet won't do a damn thing to sway what game makers do (at least the big ones) if it's obvious there's a ton of money to be made.  Maybe integrating NFTs into games as skins wasn't as clear cut as microtransactions, which appeal to anyone with an inclination to gamble.

The internet ridiculed microtransactions (see: Horse Armor) and that didn't do jack shit to stop them because they still made money.

And is anyone surprised that something hot is going to be co-opted by big corporations?  If you are, you haven't yet learned how the world works.  Develop a sense of cynicism now before you regret it.

[oaz7t]

They are failing because they are not giving proper in game services. What gaming industry should have done is entirely different story. I mean instead of making the trades between multi player zone, the gaming industries should trade with the user directly. For example, they should buy the NFT's (characters, powers, levels, usernames etc etc. ) from the users and increase the value of trade as well as game. This can creative smooth integration between the two, have the economy flourishing in the financial perspective and over the period it can do both: earn revenue and give some of it back to the users. NFT's will carry that high card stamp due to this and then we can see them going mainstream one more time. This is anyway just theoretical approach, the reality could end up entirely difference Who knows players may not be interested in it anymore

[d5000]

I think the NFT crash and subsequently their fading popularity in gaming is mainly homegrown, like Hispo wrote. If you sell scarcity and uniqueness, but eventually convert this scarcity in a mass product, then it's a contradiction in itself.

Play-to-earn [NFTs] is the absolute extrme of that concept: Playing is something most people enjoy, so the activity of "playing to earn something" will be one of the least scarce activities ever. "Earning" is normally something people do when "working", and "working" is generally a scarce activity, one people can enjoy but wouldn't do it forever, and also 99,9% of all people simply can't work in most jobs because they lack qualification. Playing is quite the opposite, even if there is some skill involved - game companies just can't make it too tough for it to be profitable.

Now you earn something which looks like it is scarce but isn't, and somewhen you'll want to sell it. Somewhen many will sell it. That doesn't happen only to P2E NFTs but also to all other mass-produced NFTs. Prices will go downhill, and the concept with it.

So I think while "Internet mocking" and the "crypto crash" may have both contributed to the "NFT crash" and thus the exodus of game publishers from the market, the real cause is simply the unsustainable concept behind the "NFT as a mass product" concept. The NFT crash may even have deepened the crypto crash a bit.

Bitcoin is radically different: it is maybe also an item which benefits from its scarcity, but it can't be just earned (at least in bigger quantities) by just "playing". Its scarcity is also not its only USP, it's the resistance to censorship, global usefulness and the absence of middlemen/single points of failure.

[oaz7t]

Amazing to see they started all the way back in 2014 man! How cool is that. I am not sure how often this thread is updated but considering above post I can also confirm that chipps and megapari is paying the users on time. There are also more than enough casinos that needs to be added to the list but they are fairly new and needs to be tested before one can do that. Idk, but casino owners should be posting in this thread and mentioning their casino's here so that everyone can understand we have valid contact of the owner too. This can add goodness in the casino rating. Highly valuable thread for the gambling person.

[davis196]

The NFT hype died because almost all NFT projects are scams, not because the crypto markets are facing a crypto winter.
If the decline of cryptocurrency prices was the main reason, then we should be witnessing more ICO tokens right now, because obviously all ICOs died due to the 2018 bear market, not because they were 99% scams.
NFTs had a cool concept(in theory) which failed in reality, because no NFT owner can protect his NFT from being copied and used without his permission. Perhaps the NFTs will be replaced by a better system in the future. A system, that actually protects copyright.
P2E games are a ponzi scam, nobody can change my mind. Just look at the Youtube channel "Coffeezila" and his investigation against Logan Paul.

[stompix]

My opinion is that everything started to go downhill when the concept of "Play-to-earn" became popular.

Everything went downhill when everyone realized that "Play-to-earn" was actually "Pay-to play-to earn" as you had to purchase some jpg or animated monsters or virtual land to play in the first place, then try to play a shitty game and earn stuff but only, and this is the funny parts, someone else would be willing to pay for it!
So when the scammers , my bad, game developers ran out of morons, again sorry gamers, the whole charade was over, as there wasn't actually anyone interested in playing the game for the game itself and of course not paying for that each month to keep the MLM going.

Beneath the common complaints that they're environmentally costly and more or less stupid, I think NFTs inspire so much repulsion on social media because they seem to corrupt something that people actually do want.
~
Most of the time I think it's just a fad, but now and then I'll come across the preaching of some passionate Web3 believer and start to wonder if I'm losing it. Do I want to make money by playing videogames?

Yeah, we want to play a game, we don't want to work, we don't want the games to turn into a fashion show where owning some item is more important than playing the game, and we don't a game that will become unplayable because people are no longer paying to earn and the game developer is going bankrupt! That's why there is so much hate for all these games where money is more important than the game, pay to win, pay to play, play to earn, the same crap with the same core.

[o48o]

People always mocked what they don't understand, especially when there's money involved and for something that's never been done. The combination/recipe is just too much and it was unavoidable.

I think success of NFT is tied to success of crypto, without adoption of Ethereum or other platforms that host NFTs, they couldn't become widely popular.

NFT is part crypto. It couldn't be NFT without being crypto, it's just a protocol for a non fungible token instead of normal fungible tokens. You make it sound like a seperate world.

[franky1]

NFT were not used in games much. that industry didnt get much involved.. the nft developers were instead wasting time on silly art memes set at silly prices.

these silly prices were where the creator puts a high price and sells it to himself thus no actual cost but then causes a price receipt to show a sell of large amount
this causes false value. and its this false value that then scares people away. especially when the creator finally sell his piece at large discount to a real customer making that fake value then become a loss..

the whole NFT market wasted too much time and advertising on "auction" style art markets and not really getting game developers to adopt NFT to manage their ingame retail product market
never bothering to create the market places for players to buy the ingame products.

everyone was waiting for near realistic 3d gaming from "meta" but all they got was anime style 'fortnight' graphic detail crap where it was just a social group of bad dancing bears buying fake drinks and listening to music while sexting each other.. not really a retail product market

....
even in the bitcoin community we had dragons tale which could have with the right developers evolved into a good 3d roaming game with games inside (gambling/chance) and ways to purchase things.. but again no development went into it.

many businesses/developers missed out on many concepts that could have drove the NFT industry. but instead they just wanted to skip evolving development and go straight to grabbing get rich quick tokens and exiting for profit to not return

[hatshepsut93]

NFTs are just infrastructure. Why did NFTs failed with games? Because the games suck in the first place and there is less incentive for game companies to have openly tradable items/characters/tickets/etc. As evident with current trending games, the best(revenue-wise) model is to have in-game items untradable.

It's not about just NFT blockchain games, it's more about mainstream games that tried to feature NFT. Adding NFT to existing and popular game is much simpler than creating a game around NFT from scratch.

The NFT hype died because almost all NFT projects are scams, not because the crypto markets are facing a crypto winter.

I think it's both. The crypto winter made people realize how useless NFT is. Such realizations don't happen in the bull market when the price doubles almost every day, because a bad thing can't go up, right?

[Hydrogen]

Limited edition collectibles related to sports and other genres are nothing new. Investors purchase the exclusiveness of memorabilia due to their exclusiveness and deflationary nature.

While a pack of baseball cards can be bought for cheap. The cards within it appreciate in rarity and exclusiveness over time. Being deflationary limited edition assets, also contributes towards their value appreciating.

These are aspects of limited edition collectibles which NFTs have tried to target within a digital format. However the format of NFTs leaves some things to be desired considering many have demonstrated how they can be reproduced in a way which trends towards them being inflationary rather than deflationary. NFTs currently lack that deflationary momentum of baseball cards and collectibles, which results in them becoming more rare over time through increasing scarcity.

NFTs being digital could also grant them some advantages over things like baseball cards. In a way which might allow them to accumulate intrinsic value. However it doesn't seem that this is widely attempted or supported. The majority of NFTs appear to target only artwork.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

The NFT hype died because almost all NFT projects are scams, not because the crypto markets are facing a crypto winter.

Are most of them scams?  I don't follow the NFT space at all, but I have a feeling that they just got too hot too quick and started selling for extremely irrational prices--just like anything that's in a bubble.  But I do suspect that the beating the crypto market took had something to do with whatever's become of them.

NFTs had a cool concept(in theory) which failed in reality, because no NFT owner can protect his NFT from being copied and used without his permission.

I don't think it's a cool concept at all.  In fact I think it's absolutely stupid.  Comic books and sports cards have been put out digitally, but there's not a thriving market for them.  I think that's because they're digital, not physical, and even if something is 'unique' because it's on a blockchain....so what?  Is it the art that's important or the perceived rarity?  Even with video games there can be extremely scarce items without having to resort to making them NFTs.  Maybe it's because I'm an old fart and not a youngster into the latest technology, but they just seem ridiculous.

[uneng]

Maybe mainstream games involving NFTs are still under early development. The hype started few years ago, and well done games take more than that to be developed. It's normal projects launched so far aren't immersive, because they were done too fast, and their primarly focus was speculative profit, instead of quality and satisfaction for the gaming community.

There were good titles, though, which unfortunatelly failed because the companies behind didn't care fixing the problems and bringing new updates.

But the future must bring something on this aspect where players will be able to earn real money while playing. After all, some people put their whole time of their lives in videogames, sometimes taking years until reaching determined achievements and being able to acquire some valuable items in-game. Nothing fairest than letting these people make real income from it.

[avikz]

I am surprised to see the statement when it says - bullied out! Lol! We are not that powerful to get something bullied out! It's decided by the market dynamics! If something is useless, the market will reject it eventually! That's exactly what happened to NFT!

Secondly, tell me one exciting game built around NFT! All games I have played related to NFT are useless and not exciting at all! So they failed! Nothing astonishing about it. NFT was destined to fail!

[bakasabo]

Why did NFTs failed with games? Because the games suck in the first place

That is so true. Never seen a good NFT based game. Most of the NFT games are worse than majority of indie games. The whole concept of NFT games are wrong. Developers create NFT and a game as an addition to tradable NFT. While everything must be completely opposite. Game, gameplay and storyline must be on the first place, and NFT should be an addition to game. In my opinion, NFT in games is like a donation system. Donation system never did anything good to any game, it only destroys everything.

[lixer]

The NFT hype died because almost all NFT projects are scams, not because the crypto markets are facing a crypto winter.
If the decline of cryptocurrency prices was the main reason, then we should be witnessing more ICO tokens right now, because obviously all ICOs died due to the 2018 bear market, not because they were 99% scams.
NFTs had a cool concept(in theory) which failed in reality, because no NFT owner can protect his NFT from being copied and used without his permission. Perhaps the NFTs will be replaced by a better system in the future. A system, that actually protects copyright.
P2E games are a ponzi scam, nobody can change my mind. Just look at the Youtube channel "Coffeezila" and his investigation against Logan Paul.

Nft's can't really be copied but those who try to are just imitations or fake and can be easily spotted and reported. Using NFT's as avatars aren't also allowed now. Anyway, I think it's both a combination of the bear and then the growing number of scams in the NFT scene. That should be the cause of their death. That's a great thing so that people's attention will be diverted again in the original cryptos.

Sooner or later, we can see an increase in their volume. About the ICO's I think there are still a few numbers of them but I don't think they will became a hit again due to how risky they are. There are now better alternatives than them so why would investors or project owners choose them?

[mk4]

It's not about just NFT blockchain games, it's more about mainstream games that tried to feature NFT. Adding NFT to existing and popular game is much simpler than creating a game around NFT from scratch.

That is true — but is there even any incentive for a gaming company to integrate NFTs onto their game, knowing that them having more control makes a lot more sense? Also taking note how the masses react to NFTs, it's just going to give them a lot of negative press.

Also, people investing in "blockchain games" totally underestimate how hard it is to create a successful game.

[stompix]

Nft's can't really be copied but those who try to are just imitations or fake and can be easily spotted and reported.

But you can make another one that just resembles it, and start selling the hype.
Because kitties or apes, monkeys or stones, they had no intrinsic value at the start other than hype, it's not like you hand one to some guy and tell him this is the only copy of the Michelangelo's David, and nobody will be able to sell a different one with the other arm raised up or one that is more yellowish or anything else.

NFTs have this problem, the public doesn't care about this being the first monkey smoking a cigar NFT nor does it care that two days later there are 1000 collections of nearly the same monkey smoking pot, it's just a fad because everything can be replicated with another fad!

After all, some people put their whole time of their lives in videogames, sometimes taking years until reaching determined achievements and being able to acquire some valuable items in-game. Nothing fairest than letting these people make real income from it.

They can do it right now without altering the game at all, without any kind of NFTs, and second, the have the cake and eat it and sell it stuff doesn't work, the money that this guy is getting paid has to come from somebody, and the moment the balance is broken a more ask for a payment, well....you end like Axies!

[uneng]

After all, some people put their whole time of their lives in videogames, sometimes taking years until reaching determined achievements and being able to acquire some valuable items in-game. Nothing fairest than letting these people make real income from it.

They can do it right now without altering the game at all, without any kind of NFTs, and second, the have the cake and eat it and sell it stuff doesn't work, the money that this guy is getting paid has to come from somebody, and the moment the balance is broken a more ask for a payment, well....you end like Axies!

Axies' economy was too simplistic and basically worked around two assets: Axies and SLPs.

A game's economy to work has to offer a complete manufactural proccess, since raw materials to final products, which have real usage and impact along the development of a player inside the game.

In games like World of Warcraft and Runescape Real World Trading has been practiced for more than 20 years already, because there are people who enjoy the game, but don't have spare time to grind money and items virtually. It's similar to what NFTs attempted to introduce in crypto industry, with the difference that there it works. Now imagine if bots were cut off and only legit players had the opportunity to earn from it. I think the environment would be pretty stable. For me it looks workable.