How Gamers Beat NFTs (Bloomberg)

TheDalaiBomba

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-10-17/how-gamers-beat-nfts


Interesting read detailing an evolution of the microtransaction scourge that finally became too much for gamers.

Hidden in this article is actually the reason gamers should never have allowed microtransactions to become the norm in the first place: "These models have been a boon for game makers. Consider the case of Activision Blizzard Inc. Over the course of 2016, the company averaged 491 million monthly users and raked in $6.6 billion in revenue, resulting in an average revenue per user of $13.45. In 2021 its average monthly users fell to 401 million, but its revenue rose to $8.8 billion, for an ARPU of $21.95. Why urge players to buy a new game when you can get them to spend more on cosmetics inside an existing one?"


To recap: Microtransaction focus resulted in less users, but more than made up for that by fleecing that smaller group harder.  Going a step further: this introduced a vicious cycle that only ends with devs shifting their design paradigm not in favor of making their games *more popular*, but by creating games with unpalatable microtransactions that leverage and prey on a smaller, more invested (or downright addicted) base.  Microtransactions are not "popular," they're merely tolerated and more psychologically effective than prior monetization techniques.  The entire framework perverts the incentives for developers and creates a situation that results in poorer games that end up costing gamers more on a per-user basis, not less.  Socioeconomic stratification in video game development and marketing is here to stay now, even if it isn't via NFTs.  Congratulations everybody!


Too bad this backlash wasn't there when console and PC devs started the microtransaction evolution.  I'd say hindsight is 20/20, but that would be unfair to those of us who made this exact argument while it was happening.


Regardless, it's good to see gamers finally waking up to the fact that studios or publishers don't necessarily have their best interests at heart, even when they try to frame it as a boon to gamers.

Mendel

FWIW, Bloomberg has a very interesting way to safeguard their content and drive people towards purchasing a subscription to their site.  I didn't.

Thanks for the heads-up on what I presume was a good read.  It is no wonder why developers think everyone that plays a game is a whale.  Non-whales need not apply.  I have been buried in the socioeconomic midden layer.

TheDalaiBomba

The article, generally, recaps the blunders and blowback from across the industry to publishers and startups trying to push NFT gaming and metaverses, specifically the play to earn angle.

It also alludes to a larger discussion about the current "metaverse" push, highlighting the fact that gamers in this genre have been enjoying metaverses for decades now.  It compared this to the recent "revolutions" offered by folks like Zuckerberg about "new" metaverse ideas, noting they are merely marketing tactics designed to get people sucked into an older, rather common idea presented in a new, more predatory monetization framework.  It seems, at least for the moment, this is a step too far for consumers.  Hopefully that lasts.

maskedweasel

TheDalaiBomba said:

The article, generally, recaps the blunders and blowback from across the industry to publishers and startups trying to push NFT gaming and metaverses, specifically the play to earn angle.

It also alludes to a larger discussion about the current "metaverse" push, highlighting the fact that gamers in this genre have been enjoying metaverses for decades now.  It compared this to the recent "revolutions" offered by folks like Zuckerberg about "new" metaverse ideas, noting they are merely marketing tactics designed to get people sucked into an older, rather common idea presented in a new, more predatory monetization framework.  It seems, at least for the moment, this is a step too far for consumers.  Hopefully that lasts.

This is like saying that the bicycle or wagon was a prelude to a car, and consumers are against the car because it's more expensive and is built on old ideas that have never been proven to be useful when extrapolated on.

I didn't read the article, probably won't. But there's only one reason that people see so many of the predatory blunders of NFTs as being ...blunders, and it's built on an inorganic growth pattern held up by a notion of cashing in on a craze that few "investors" ever understood.

The technology has very good use cases. And there are 'metaverses' and Blockchain games in creation that could eventually be a big deal. 

But the focus over the past several years has been to put out cheap imitations of popular games while they tack on monetization schemes that rarely make sense in practice, because they require market fluctuations to work, and that inevitably was their downfall.

The biggest problem was making the monetization of the technology the only selling point aside from other games. For some, that was enough. But not mainstream gamers, and I've had this very conversation with "developers" of Blockchain games before.

A lot just don't get it. 

But make no mistake, if the market was still good, the more predatory games would be rolling in money and the articles would look very different.  The crash was necessary if they want the technology to evolve into something people aren't going to completely hate.

TheDalaiBomba

That's because, as we've discussed, there is no overwhelming need to use NFTs to monetize these games.

That's the reason Minecraft banned it: Microsoft has no need to shovel in NFTs when they already make their money via a traditional cash shop.  What incentive would they ever have to open that up to web3?  The answer is none.

Solution in search of a problem, my dude.  Gamers didn't even want microtransactions, they merely accepted them.  Taking that further isn't some revolution waiting for gamers to catch up.  It's heading further in a direction gamers never asked for.

Superman0X

Mendel said:

FWIW, Bloomberg has a very interesting way to safeguard their content and drive people towards purchasing a subscription to their site.  I didn't.

Thanks for the heads-up on what I presume was a good read.  It is no wonder why developers think everyone that plays a game is a whale.  Non-whales need not apply.  I have been buried in the socioeconomic midden layer.

Psst:

https://archive.ph/df2Aq

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Superman0X

DarkZorvanReturns said:

maskedweasel said:

TheDalaiBomba said:

The article, generally, recaps the blunders and blowback from across the industry to publishers and startups trying to push NFT gaming and metaverses, specifically the play to earn angle.

It also alludes to a larger discussion about the current "metaverse" push, highlighting the fact that gamers in this genre have been enjoying metaverses for decades now.  It compared this to the recent "revolutions" offered by folks like Zuckerberg about "new" metaverse ideas, noting they are merely marketing tactics designed to get people sucked into an older, rather common idea presented in a new, more predatory monetization framework.  It seems, at least for the moment, this is a step too far for consumers.  Hopefully that lasts.

This is like saying that the bicycle or wagon was a prelude to a car, and consumers are against the car because it's more expensive and is built on old ideas that have never been proven to be useful when extrapolated on.

I didn't read the article, probably won't. But there's only one reason that people see so many of the predatory blunders of NFTs as being ...blunders, and it's built on an inorganic growth pattern held up by a notion of cashing in on a craze that few "investors" ever understood.

The technology has very good use cases. And there are 'metaverses' and Blockchain games in creation that could eventually be a big deal. 

But the focus over the past several years has been to put out cheap imitations of popular games while they tack on monetization schemes that rarely make sense in practice, because they require market fluctuations to work, and that inevitably was their downfall.

The biggest problem was making the monetization of the technology the only selling point aside from other games. For some, that was enough. But not mainstream gamers, and I've had this very conversation with "developers" of Blockchain games before.

A lot just don't get it. 

But make no mistake, if the market was still good, the more predatory games would be rolling in money and the articles would look very different.  The crash was necessary if they want the technology to evolve into something people aren't going to completely hate.

There's only one way any game developer is going to prove blockchain ( not crypto, not NFT, just the blockchain ) would be good for games.

Shut the fuck up, develop the game, release it, when people like it THEN tell everyone "Hey, there's blockchain in there!".

Until then, morons can keep announcing they're making blockchain games and those same morons will fail. Even the hint of blockchain is going to get your game put on ignore and you can thank the crypto bros and NFT swindlers  for it.

You can't convince me to try the veal when I can smell that it's liver.

Blockchain is the new buzzword for the gaming market... and as most companies were slow to take up F2P (and now see how big a mistake that was) they are over eager to add crypto/nft to their games (or platforms) but dont have any understanding of what value it could offer to customers (they just believe that it will somehow translate to more money for them).

maskedweasel

TheDalaiBomba said:

That's because, as we've discussed, there is no overwhelming need to use NFTs to monetize these games.

That's the reason Minecraft banned it: Microsoft has no need to shovel in NFTs when they already make their money via a traditional cash shop.  What incentive would they ever have to open that up to web3?  The answer is none.

Solution in search of a problem, my dude.  Gamers didn't even want microtransactions, they merely accepted them.  Taking that further isn't some revolution waiting for gamers to catch up.  It's heading further in a direction gamers never asked for.

Not really a solution looking for a problem. It's more along the lines of an evolution of a current technology. Blockchain can be used for monetization, and it also could NOT be used for monetization. It can be used to create unique items, and make them "immutable" or it could be used to generate items for people to sell in a limited and predatory capacity. It could be used to create a game that runs solely without servers, where the game itself lives off of a blockchain protocol, or it could be used to live in a very proprietary server capacity.

You could do these things without blockchain. But you could do them with blockchain too. 

Most gamers don't ask for distributed databases. It's a weird way to go about the inclusion of blockchain in games. The REASON so many companies started flashing "BLOCKCHAIN CRYPTO NFT" is because people were buying pictures of monkeys for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It didn't matter if there was no utility for a monkey picture. 

maskedweasel

DarkZorvanReturns said:

maskedweasel said:

TheDalaiBomba said:

The article, generally, recaps the blunders and blowback from across the industry to publishers and startups trying to push NFT gaming and metaverses, specifically the play to earn angle.

It also alludes to a larger discussion about the current "metaverse" push, highlighting the fact that gamers in this genre have been enjoying metaverses for decades now.  It compared this to the recent "revolutions" offered by folks like Zuckerberg about "new" metaverse ideas, noting they are merely marketing tactics designed to get people sucked into an older, rather common idea presented in a new, more predatory monetization framework.  It seems, at least for the moment, this is a step too far for consumers.  Hopefully that lasts.

This is like saying that the bicycle or wagon was a prelude to a car, and consumers are against the car because it's more expensive and is built on old ideas that have never been proven to be useful when extrapolated on.

I didn't read the article, probably won't. But there's only one reason that people see so many of the predatory blunders of NFTs as being ...blunders, and it's built on an inorganic growth pattern held up by a notion of cashing in on a craze that few "investors" ever understood.

The technology has very good use cases. And there are 'metaverses' and Blockchain games in creation that could eventually be a big deal. 

But the focus over the past several years has been to put out cheap imitations of popular games while they tack on monetization schemes that rarely make sense in practice, because they require market fluctuations to work, and that inevitably was their downfall.

The biggest problem was making the monetization of the technology the only selling point aside from other games. For some, that was enough. But not mainstream gamers, and I've had this very conversation with "developers" of Blockchain games before.

A lot just don't get it. 

But make no mistake, if the market was still good, the more predatory games would be rolling in money and the articles would look very different.  The crash was necessary if they want the technology to evolve into something people aren't going to completely hate.

There's only one way any game developer is going to prove blockchain ( not crypto, not NFT, just the blockchain ) would be good for games.

Shut the fuck up, develop the game, release it, when people like it THEN tell everyone "Hey, there's blockchain in there!".

Until then, morons can keep announcing they're making blockchain games and those same morons will fail. Even the hint of blockchain is going to get your game put on ignore and you can thank the crypto bros and NFT swindlers  for it.

You can't convince me to try the veal when I can smell that it's liver.

It's rare for me to agree with you, but you're right. They should have never even announced blockchain as a feature. They should just have built a good game first. But developers want to capitalize on "the promise" of what's to come, because so many of them can't deliver.

Mendel

Superman0X said:

Mendel said:

FWIW, Bloomberg has a very interesting way to safeguard their content and drive people towards purchasing a subscription to their site.  I didn't.

Thanks for the heads-up on what I presume was a good read.  It is no wonder why developers think everyone that plays a game is a whale.  Non-whales need not apply.  I have been buried in the socioeconomic midden layer.

Psst:

https://archive.ph/df2Aq

Thanks immensely.

All this talk of a metaverse, and only a passing mention of WoW or other MMORPGs.

Uwakionna

Part of the problem is that blockchain is a stepwise evolution with a host of it's own problems. Speed of communication, the shifted security issues, the problem of using immutable code for any kind of online/live service.

People make a fuss about updating MMOs already. Just think the complications and bloat from having to launch a new protocol just to patch some issue. Gotta lean on that "launch it and drop it" like a game cartridge at that point (which even those had recalls). Immutability when talking about game development is a pretty big risk factor as much as some may think it a benefit.

Kyleran

maskedweasel said:

TheDalaiBomba said:

The article, generally, recaps the blunders and blowback from across the industry to publishers and startups trying to push NFT gaming and metaverses, specifically the play to earn angle.

It also alludes to a larger discussion about the current "metaverse" push, highlighting the fact that gamers in this genre have been enjoying metaverses for decades now.  It compared this to the recent "revolutions" offered by folks like Zuckerberg about "new" metaverse ideas, noting they are merely marketing tactics designed to get people sucked into an older, rather common idea presented in a new, more predatory monetization framework.  It seems, at least for the moment, this is a step too far for consumers.  Hopefully that lasts.

This is like saying that the bicycle or wagon was a prelude to a car, and consumers are against the car because it's more expensive and is built on old ideas that have never been proven to be useful when extrapolated on.

I didn't read the article, probably won't. 

Naw, the bicycle or wagon were improved by the invention of the car, crypto / NFTs arguably make things worse for gamers in terms of monetization.

You probably should've have read the article before you posted, they crushed your arguments.

I mean there are several good use cases for nuclear weapons, but all in all I wouldn't mind if mankind walked away from them entirely.

Same for crypto/NFTs in gaming, the idea can basically 

Slapshot1188

I refuse to participate in any discussion around NFT games without @bcbully
Bring back the Bully!

maskedweasel

Kyleran said:

maskedweasel said:

TheDalaiBomba said:

The article, generally, recaps the blunders and blowback from across the industry to publishers and startups trying to push NFT gaming and metaverses, specifically the play to earn angle.

It also alludes to a larger discussion about the current "metaverse" push, highlighting the fact that gamers in this genre have been enjoying metaverses for decades now.  It compared this to the recent "revolutions" offered by folks like Zuckerberg about "new" metaverse ideas, noting they are merely marketing tactics designed to get people sucked into an older, rather common idea presented in a new, more predatory monetization framework.  It seems, at least for the moment, this is a step too far for consumers.  Hopefully that lasts.

This is like saying that the bicycle or wagon was a prelude to a car, and consumers are against the car because it's more expensive and is built on old ideas that have never been proven to be useful when extrapolated on.

I didn't read the article, probably won't. 

Naw, the bicycle or wagon were improved by the invention of the car, crypto / NFTs arguably make things worse for gamers in terms of monetization.

You probably should've have read the article before you posted, they crushed your arguments.

I mean there are several good use cases for nuclear weapons, but all in all I wouldn't mind if mankind walked away from them entirely.

Same for crypto/NFTs in gaming, the idea can basically 

I don't need to read the article to know it's already biased and probably ill informed on the numerous projects in development. 

The fact that you're still talking about Blockchain in the context of monetization is pretty much all I need to know. 

Theocritus

It all falls back to us, the consumers....If we say no then they find another way.....We blame the game makers, but we are the ones doling out the money...Just refuse to pay for the microtransactions....The problem is with the mindset of the gamers...Until that changes, we will keep seeing more of the same.

Iselin

NFTs in gaming were like New Coke was to soft drinks: a heavily marketed WTF moment.

Maybe some gamers who are also underlying tech nerds think that the blockchain tech under the NFTs hood is wonderful, revolutionary, and full of potential... good for you but most of us don't give a shit about that at all.

We just want to play better games and we just ain't seeing anything in NFTs that is new and improved like we didn't with New Coke.

IDK anything about soft drink syrup chemistry and who knows, maybe New Coke used revolutionary new mixes and techniques that were full of potential too. We didn't care about that either. We just knew it tasted like ass compared to old Coke.

What we see is the gaming industry going too far in treating us like chumps who will fall for any new monetization scheme they dream up. They actually did us a huge favor by overemphasizing the marketing buzzwords without a great proof of concept, or hands-on, game to see it in action.

That helped tremendously in exposing the empty promises and forced a moment of reflection where we collectively asked: "Just what's in to for me as a gamer?" When the answer was the inevitable "not a damn thing" it was impossible to not see what the gaming corporations were up to: just trying to sell us on how edgy, new and buzzword-filled this trash is with no discernible benefit for us whatsoever.

Dibdabs

NFTs and ShitCoin are for gullible rubes.  People with more than two braincells know they're just the latest scam in a long line of scams.

Kyleran

Dibdabs said:

NFTs and ShitCoin are for gullible rubes.  People with more than two braincells know they're just the latest scam in a long line of scams.

Yeah, but many thought the same about F2P, cash shop models yet it became perhaps the dominant monetization model in the online gaming space.

Always seems to be a new or better way to fleece customers of their money just over the next rise, and gamers almost always fall for it, hard.

Scot

Kyleran said:

Dibdabs said:

NFTs and ShitCoin are for gullible rubes.  People with more than two braincells know they're just the latest scam in a long line of scams.

Yeah, but many thought the same about F2P, cash shop models yet it became perhaps the dominant monetization model in the online gaming space.

Always seems to be a new or better way to fleece customers of their money just over the next rise, and gamers almost always fall for it, hard.

So many gamers fail to realise they have been turned into customers and are well on the way to being turned into consumers. This is a continuing process which has no end, gaming will gain more and more features akin to online shopping. Until it becomes hard to tell the difference between the online spending reasons between a teenager who games from one who follows fashion, plays gambling games or likes UberEATS rather too much.

You bought that cosmetic because it made you look better, that loot box because it temporarily satisfied your gambling need, and those boosts to help with the crafting/leveling or whatever. We are halfway there already.

Asm0deus

Iselin said:

...snip...

We just want to play better games and we just ain't seeing anything in NFTs that is new and improved like we didn't with New Coke.

IDK anything about soft drink syrup chemistry and who knows, maybe New Coke used revolutionary new mixes and techniques that were full of potential too. We didn't care about that either. We just knew it tasted like ass compared to old Coke.
...snip...

A bit off topic but I prefer mexican coke to american coke.  It just tastes better. 

For anyone thinking I am taking the shit here I am not.  American coke is made using high-fructose corn syrup while mexican coke is made using cane suger which also is less processed so technically healthier....lol

I kind of feel the same about NFT's in gaming...it's the unhealthy choice!  lmao

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

TheDalaiBomba

maskedweasel said:

Kyleran said:

maskedweasel said:

TheDalaiBomba said:

The article, generally, recaps the blunders and blowback from across the industry to publishers and startups trying to push NFT gaming and metaverses, specifically the play to earn angle.

It also alludes to a larger discussion about the current "metaverse" push, highlighting the fact that gamers in this genre have been enjoying metaverses for decades now.  It compared this to the recent "revolutions" offered by folks like Zuckerberg about "new" metaverse ideas, noting they are merely marketing tactics designed to get people sucked into an older, rather common idea presented in a new, more predatory monetization framework.  It seems, at least for the moment, this is a step too far for consumers.  Hopefully that lasts.

This is like saying that the bicycle or wagon was a prelude to a car, and consumers are against the car because it's more expensive and is built on old ideas that have never been proven to be useful when extrapolated on.

I didn't read the article, probably won't. 

Naw, the bicycle or wagon were improved by the invention of the car, crypto / NFTs arguably make things worse for gamers in terms of monetization.

You probably should've have read the article before you posted, they crushed your arguments.

I mean there are several good use cases for nuclear weapons, but all in all I wouldn't mind if mankind walked away from them entirely.

Same for crypto/NFTs in gaming, the idea can basically 

I don't need to read the article to know it's already biased and probably ill informed on the numerous projects in development. 

The fact that you're still talking about Blockchain in the context of monetization is pretty much all I need to know. 

maskedweasel said:

DarkZorvanReturns said:

maskedweasel said:

TheDalaiBomba said:

The article, generally, recaps the blunders and blowback from across the industry to publishers and startups trying to push NFT gaming and metaverses, specifically the play to earn angle.

It also alludes to a larger discussion about the current "metaverse" push, highlighting the fact that gamers in this genre have been enjoying metaverses for decades now.  It compared this to the recent "revolutions" offered by folks like Zuckerberg about "new" metaverse ideas, noting they are merely marketing tactics designed to get people sucked into an older, rather common idea presented in a new, more predatory monetization framework.  It seems, at least for the moment, this is a step too far for consumers.  Hopefully that lasts.

This is like saying that the bicycle or wagon was a prelude to a car, and consumers are against the car because it's more expensive and is built on old ideas that have never been proven to be useful when extrapolated on.

I didn't read the article, probably won't. But there's only one reason that people see so many of the predatory blunders of NFTs as being ...blunders, and it's built on an inorganic growth pattern held up by a notion of cashing in on a craze that few "investors" ever understood.

The technology has very good use cases. And there are 'metaverses' and Blockchain games in creation that could eventually be a big deal. 

But the focus over the past several years has been to put out cheap imitations of popular games while they tack on monetization schemes that rarely make sense in practice, because they require market fluctuations to work, and that inevitably was their downfall.

The biggest problem was making the monetization of the technology the only selling point aside from other games. For some, that was enough. But not mainstream gamers, and I've had this very conversation with "developers" of Blockchain games before.

A lot just don't get it. 

But make no mistake, if the market was still good, the more predatory games would be rolling in money and the articles would look very different.  The crash was necessary if they want the technology to evolve into something people aren't going to completely hate.

There's only one way any game developer is going to prove blockchain ( not crypto, not NFT, just the blockchain ) would be good for games.

Shut the fuck up, develop the game, release it, when people like it THEN tell everyone "Hey, there's blockchain in there!".

Until then, morons can keep announcing they're making blockchain games and those same morons will fail. Even the hint of blockchain is going to get your game put on ignore and you can thank the crypto bros and NFT swindlers  for it.

You can't convince me to try the veal when I can smell that it's liver.

It's rare for me to agree with you, but you're right. They should have never even announced blockchain as a feature. They should just have built a good game first. But developers want to capitalize on "the promise" of what's to come, because so many of them can't deliver.

There's a good reason for this.


Adopting blockchain isn't free.  They're not going to to include speculative financial assets in their games unless they think it will increase revenue.  Otherwise, there's no real benefit to them to include it.

Your talk about what's possible is getting in the way of your seeing what's real.

Iselin

DarkZorvanReturns said:

Asm0deus said:

Iselin said:

...snip...

We just want to play better games and we just ain't seeing anything in NFTs that is new and improved like we didn't with New Coke.

IDK anything about soft drink syrup chemistry and who knows, maybe New Coke used revolutionary new mixes and techniques that were full of potential too. We didn't care about that either. We just knew it tasted like ass compared to old Coke.
...snip...

A bit off topic but I prefer mexican coke to american coke.  It just tastes better. 

For anyone thinking I am taking the shit here I am not.  American coke is made using high-fructose corn syrup while mexican coke is made using cane suger which also is less processed so technically healthier....lol

I kind of feel the same about NFT's in gaming...it's the unhealthy choice!  lmao

Mexican Coke is original recipe, albeit without the cocaine.

Now that's something I could get behind: retro coke with cane sugar and cocaine

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

maskedweasel

TheDalaiBomba said:

maskedweasel said:

Kyleran said:

maskedweasel said:

TheDalaiBomba said:

The article, generally, recaps the blunders and blowback from across the industry to publishers and startups trying to push NFT gaming and metaverses, specifically the play to earn angle.

It also alludes to a larger discussion about the current "metaverse" push, highlighting the fact that gamers in this genre have been enjoying metaverses for decades now.  It compared this to the recent "revolutions" offered by folks like Zuckerberg about "new" metaverse ideas, noting they are merely marketing tactics designed to get people sucked into an older, rather common idea presented in a new, more predatory monetization framework.  It seems, at least for the moment, this is a step too far for consumers.  Hopefully that lasts.

This is like saying that the bicycle or wagon was a prelude to a car, and consumers are against the car because it's more expensive and is built on old ideas that have never been proven to be useful when extrapolated on.

I didn't read the article, probably won't. 

Naw, the bicycle or wagon were improved by the invention of the car, crypto / NFTs arguably make things worse for gamers in terms of monetization.

You probably should've have read the article before you posted, they crushed your arguments.

I mean there are several good use cases for nuclear weapons, but all in all I wouldn't mind if mankind walked away from them entirely.

Same for crypto/NFTs in gaming, the idea can basically 

I don't need to read the article to know it's already biased and probably ill informed on the numerous projects in development. 

The fact that you're still talking about Blockchain in the context of monetization is pretty much all I need to know. 

maskedweasel said:

DarkZorvanReturns said:

maskedweasel said:

TheDalaiBomba said:

The article, generally, recaps the blunders and blowback from across the industry to publishers and startups trying to push NFT gaming and metaverses, specifically the play to earn angle.

It also alludes to a larger discussion about the current "metaverse" push, highlighting the fact that gamers in this genre have been enjoying metaverses for decades now.  It compared this to the recent "revolutions" offered by folks like Zuckerberg about "new" metaverse ideas, noting they are merely marketing tactics designed to get people sucked into an older, rather common idea presented in a new, more predatory monetization framework.  It seems, at least for the moment, this is a step too far for consumers.  Hopefully that lasts.

This is like saying that the bicycle or wagon was a prelude to a car, and consumers are against the car because it's more expensive and is built on old ideas that have never been proven to be useful when extrapolated on.

I didn't read the article, probably won't. But there's only one reason that people see so many of the predatory blunders of NFTs as being ...blunders, and it's built on an inorganic growth pattern held up by a notion of cashing in on a craze that few "investors" ever understood.

The technology has very good use cases. And there are 'metaverses' and Blockchain games in creation that could eventually be a big deal. 

But the focus over the past several years has been to put out cheap imitations of popular games while they tack on monetization schemes that rarely make sense in practice, because they require market fluctuations to work, and that inevitably was their downfall.

The biggest problem was making the monetization of the technology the only selling point aside from other games. For some, that was enough. But not mainstream gamers, and I've had this very conversation with "developers" of Blockchain games before.

A lot just don't get it. 

But make no mistake, if the market was still good, the more predatory games would be rolling in money and the articles would look very different.  The crash was necessary if they want the technology to evolve into something people aren't going to completely hate.

There's only one way any game developer is going to prove blockchain ( not crypto, not NFT, just the blockchain ) would be good for games.

Shut the fuck up, develop the game, release it, when people like it THEN tell everyone "Hey, there's blockchain in there!".

Until then, morons can keep announcing they're making blockchain games and those same morons will fail. Even the hint of blockchain is going to get your game put on ignore and you can thank the crypto bros and NFT swindlers  for it.

You can't convince me to try the veal when I can smell that it's liver.

It's rare for me to agree with you, but you're right. They should have never even announced blockchain as a feature. They should just have built a good game first. But developers want to capitalize on "the promise" of what's to come, because so many of them can't deliver.

There's a good reason for this.


Adopting blockchain isn't free.  They're not going to to include speculative financial assets in their games unless they think it will increase revenue.  Otherwise, there's no real benefit to them to include it.

Your talk about what's possible is getting in the way of your seeing what's real.

Actually it is.

You can create any proprietary chain for free. You can even create test net chains for free. 

But most of the time, when you're attempting to create something built on a Blockchain, you want to do so on a popular chain that currently has an infrastructure. Like Ethereum or Solana, or matic. Even in those cases the actual cost to build, could be literally less than a dollar for an infinite number of tokens.

Of course it kind of kills the purpose of Blockchain to create a proprietary chain with a central authority... But... Some actually do.

*Edit*

And as for what's real, I wouldn't suspect anyone to know what's "real" or "fake" ... Check out projects like 6 dragons. There are a lot of proof of concept Blockchain games that are pushing some very interesting boundaries. Xaya is another good platform to look into.