• Vlyn@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    At first glance NFTs in games seem to make sense. For example take a digital trading card game, might be pretty cool to hold ownership of your cards outside the game and be free to exchange them with other players with no restrictions, right?

    But then you have to think a step further: The card is useless without the game. If the game shuts down? Nobody can use the card. If the game decides in two years that the card you own is too powerful and they forbid it from tournament play? Well, wasted money.

    So overall you might be able to prove ownership of a “card”, but without the context of the game it’s meaningless data. And the game has to decide itself what your card means and what it can do. So we’re back to simply using a normal database inside the game to hold your cards giving the same benefits (without the headache of NFTs).

    The argument that you could use the card or the item in another game is bullshit on top. The other game would have to implement every item, which they simply won’t do. So NFTs in the gaming niche are overall bullshit.

    • blue_zephyr@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      A game developer could easily link a trading card to an account. There’s no need whatsoever to use an NFT for that.

      • natanael@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        And if you want to use them in 3rd party games too? The game developer could sign a list of cards you own which you can import. No need for a blockchain.

    • Dudewitbow@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      You wouldnt have to implement every item, youd just have to make a default option for things that do not have an implementation for a game.

      A similar example of how it would work irl is how Amiibos work. In Smash, a link amiibo would use a link AI, in zelda, it can spawn rare materials or spawn Epona in BOTW/TOTK. Scan a link amiibo in like Animal Crossing itll tell you not supported. In fire emblem games, generic ammibos with no special effects drop random material

      How amiibos work for specifcally smash. As its the only one that writes data to the NFC chip, is sort of like NFTs for gaming, but a physical product. No one else has your specific AI (unless you dumped it)

      • Vlyn@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        All your examples still go back to each and every game having to implement that item. There is no “default option”.

        And if every game has to implement each item… they can just leave items out. Or block them. Or say they are invalid. Or change them (buffs/nerfs). So you might think you are holding a unique item that only belongs to you, but in reality it’s worth nothing as it can be removed with one click from any game you might want to use it in.

        Which makes an NFT not an ounce better than having that item in the game’s database.

        • Dudewitbow@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          It wouldnt, because in the case of amiibos, each is just an ID stored in the NFC chip, the only implementation they would need to do is during something like a switch case check in programming, if none of the implemented cases are detected, then it would default to the default option, it doesnt need to be specific to the said amiibo, it just needs to not be in thr ID list that is not already inplemented. The non implemented path is the “default” option. What other term would you even refer to for the specific case where it is NOT the case.

          Your whole situation is more or less is how konami implemented yugioh cards in its early games.

          • Vlyn@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The “default option” you bring up is useless. What value does it have if I “own” a playing card ID, but the card isn’t implemented in 9 out of 10 games? And the tenth game shuts down after a year, so now my card can’t be used anywhere. It’s idiotic.

            As it’s just an ID I probably don’t even have any card image or stats or whatever, it’s a worthless value in a database (blockchain in this case).

            • Dudewitbow@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              It isnt useless as in some cases, amiibos would provide material, albeit its less valuable than the ones implemented, it does serve a function. In the context of yugioh, they were only implemented for the first few gameboy/gba games till the code feature dropped off entirely.

              • Vlyn@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I’m still talking about NFTs here, not Amiibos… and in the case of an NFT you don’t even get a physical object to look at.

      • 👁️👄👁️@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        It baffles me that people still try to defend the point of NFTs in multiple games. What is the motivation do you think there is for Amiibos to work across those games? Those are all first party Nintendo games, so they still are making money off of it.

        Where the hell is the motivation to get your legendary dong slayer sword to work in call of duty? Why would they want to support that? They don’t, and it makes no sense why they ever would.

        Again, it’s different with Amiibos because they’re all developed by Nintendo companies, and Nintendo can force them to do that. You’re also getting actual merchandise and something you can hold on to instead of a digital receipt.

        • Dudewitbow@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          You make it sound like I was pro NFT (im not), im just saying NFT-like usage already exists without the use of NFTs or not.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          But at least you get a physical thing when you buy an Amiibo. My daughter used to buy them just because she liked the figures, she didn’t even care about the game part. With the NFTs, you get… a picture anyone else can duplicate on their own computer