Look at the timing. That reply is 2 hours old. My post was closed 30 min ago.
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No it does not.
I really like that guy. Not because I think he made the best argument against all of this, but because I think he genuinely cares.
Anyway, I do think that NFTâs and P2E will kill Eve as we know it. It would likely survive as a lumbering zombie for a while (possibly years), but itâs going to create a positive feedback cycle that will cause Eve to rapidly devolve into a MLM-type scam.
Think about it, players who play for fun will begin to leave, and P2E players will flood into the game. These players will avoid anything that doesnât generate wealth like the plague, and start to turn New Eden into a sea of bots and bot aspirants. This, in turn, will cause more play for fun (P4F) players to leave, which will further change player demographics, which will cause CCP to make changes that cater to the P2E crowd, and so on and so forth.
Believe it or not, I think things would actually be interesting for quite a while, as I have no doubt that pirates, scammers, gankers, extortionists, and all that good stuff will do what they can to extract wealth from others. But eventually, the whole thing will collapse. After all, if all the P4F players leave, the stuff will only have value to the P2E guys. And they arenât going to keep pumping money into the system if the canât get a decent ROI.
So, it will all collapse, itâs only a matter of how long it takes, and who gets ducked along the way. Of course, I doubt it will be the most exploitative RL scumbags. More than likely, it will be desperate people from low wage countries and various greater fools that got in too late.
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In general, I think people are over-reacting to some statements made by CEOâs who are trying to look good to their respective boards of directors, who are in turn trying to look good to their share holders. âYes, we see this thing and we will try to make money off it if we can figure out how, since thatâs all you really care about. Please let us keep our cushy jobs for another year.â This is just my opinion, though, and I have no interest in trying to silence people whoâre trying to raise awareness, even though I donât think it would affect the outcome either way.
However, at risk of being accused to being a space lawyer, there is a section here Iâm very skeptical of:
I donât think this will be the case for long, and that some of the first few who were to do this would actually face real world punishment for it in their respective jurisdictions.
It gets bandied about here and there already, but if youâve ever read the ToS for pretty much any MMO out there, they expressly deny that the players own any of the in game items and declare the value of all in game items to be zero. As players do not own any of these items, you can not steal them, and if you could, theyâre worthless anyway.
If NFTs are implemented in such a way as to give players ownership of items that are worth real world cash, then duping someone out of their assets constitutes wire fraud. In the US, to prove fraud one needs to prove the intent to deceive, and the intent to benefit from the deception. This is very hard to prove when the items donât change ownership (always belong to CCP) and have an explicit zero value and canât be converted into real world money. The âwireâ part of âwire fraudâ just means the fraud was committed over telephone or internet, some traditionally wire based communications medium.
It hasnât been tested in court that I know of, but I find it hard to imagine a judge is going to say itâs OK to take stuff from people thatâs worth money because it is digital, or because itâs on blockchain, or for any other unique attribute inherent to the digital items a victim was defrauded out of. Connect the game to real world finances and I believe there will ensue real world consequences.
I donât have a problem with NFTs as a technology. Theyâre an interesting experiment. I just think the applications people have thought of for them so far are impractical or more efficiently done some other way. Thatâs the way people are, though. We waste time and energy on stupid stuff like postulating on federal law as an armchair lawyer on a forum where nobody listens for a game one no longer plays.
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Explained a while back how the scam works here: Here is what CCP does not understand about NFTs
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I think right here is the CCP solution, they will keep relying on CORE and Safety to keep the balance, but if these people leave, then it may collapse. But before that they will pull some trigayvian again, that also must be some ace in their plans.
I think EVE WILL DIE as we know it, Iâm not sure EVE product will be extinguish.
We gotta remember Entropia still exists, ofc most of the people playing it owns a computer farm, anywayâŚ
Remains to be seem.
Itâs because NFTs are like Tinkerbell, and any value they might have is purely subjective (or sentimental) or extrinsic and dependent on crytpobros convincing every schmuck they can find that all the other schmucks believe in Tinkerbell.
See also: Tulpa - Wikipedia
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Your information is incorrect on what they are, when, and what Steam is doing.
Those trading cards are not NFT. You will see it clearly if you look at the details.
The first NFTâs in Eve was a limited experiment by CCP, as they themselves have stated officially. It was introduced with the last alliance tournament - 2021.
Steam and Valve have changed their rules and have started banning NFTâs. News articles from October 2021:
Steam will no longer let games or other software onto its storefront if they engage in any cryptocurrency or NFT trading using blockchain technology.
Cryptocurrencies and NFTs were tagged onto to the list of prohibited application features on Steamâs Steamworks Onboarding document for developers shipping titles on its platform, specifically â[a]pplications built on blockchain technology that issue or allow exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs.â
Its not immediately clear when the new rule was added to the list, but according to Engadget, it appears to have been sometime after October 6, 2021.
It is quite clear in Steam and Valveâs new rules for partners:
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted/onboarding
What you shouldnât publish on Steam:
13. Applications built on blockchain technology that issue or allow exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs.
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Except NFTs are not recognized as proof of anything in the us. So, an asset that has no actual value is transferred anonymously, over an anonymous blockchain network⌠no crime. Even if the laws change to recognize an nft as proof of ownership of something, like a deed, all the nameless transferability makes it very difficult to prove it was stolen not given or sold. The idea is redundant, we already have systems that work well for everything it could possibly do.
Yeah, thatâs not what the people who are against NFTâs are saying. In fact, I find your argument to be a reductio ad absurdum. So, let me break down why gamers* are actually opposed to them:
- They perceive companies as trying to inject NFTâs and P2E into games and franchises that they love in a greedy and exploitative attempt to extract more money out of their players
- Cryptocurrencies and NFTâs have sent the price of GPUâs through the roof
- And, at least some of them think that crypto and/or NFTâs are fundamentally a scam, which makes them immoral
Personally, Iâm fully on board with the first two points, and, quite frankly, your arguments arenât doing anything to convince me point 3 isnât true.
Now, I think itâs unfair to tell you that you need to watch a 2 hour video, and then debunk his claims one by one. But if you want to have any chance of convincing gamers that NFTâs, crypto, and/or P2E isnât the devil, you should probably try addressing their actual concerns and complaints.
*Note: I should probably specify that the gaming community is not a monolith, and that there are, in fact, segments of the gaming community that are embracing P2E, and that donât seem to have a problem with crypto and NFTâs. So, when I say gamer, Iâm not trying to make a no-true-Scotsman fallacy, but am instead referring to the segment of the gaming population that is turning against it.
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Lol. Wow. So, theyâre basically saying
- Their motivation is to empower players, and
- Gamers arenât embracing NFTâs because they donât understand them.
Iâm not sure if theyâre idiots, or if they just think that weâre all a bunch of idiots.
Well, I suppose thereâs the third option. Their BS isnât meant to convince skeptics and detractors, but to reassure the players that they hope to exploit.
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I was going to post that article earlier today, but then decided that the content is too dumb even by my posting standards.
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I am not so sure you really have a problem with NFTs, but more a lack of faith in what those in a position of authority over the gaming domain are going to do with them. You donât seem to mind, or at least have not raised a specific point against, players trading items with each other.
Zoiieâs aggressive and repetitive tone doesnât do much to promote her point, but NFTs do still carry the ephemeral promise of true ownership of your in game goodies so that you can profit off them if you no longer need them. She seems to envision some kind of secondary market place outside the control of the developers where people can exchange these goods and deny the developer the ability to price fix those digital goods.
Personally, I think that sounds like a mixed bag of consequences even if I grant that it is exactly what would come to pass, but none the less it does sound good as a theory if it is proffered to me on the basis that I can earn money doing something I like instead of working my 9 to 5. I do see the appeal even if I donât believe this idealistic outcome is likely.
I donât have a problem with what Captain Ubisoft has to say. I will admit I donât know a lot about Quartz, or Tezos, the crypto their NFTs are based on. I, as he says, do not understand the benefits or the underpinnings of their specific implementation. So fine. I am not offended to be called ignorant when that is probably the case.
What raises the alarm bells is that I am kept ignorant. Mr. Ubisoft doesnât go to any length to explain anything. I am not informed of how their company intends to profit off it, unless he expects me to believe theyâre motivated by pure altruism. Basically whatâs concerning is that impression that questions and concerns are being dismissed instead of engaged with and that points to a sinister motive that someone doesnât want you to find out about. Theyâre afraid that if I did understand it, I still wouldnât like it.
This leads me to speculate that instead of being a technology to allow me to profit while having fun, they are a technology that will be used to exploit my psychology to keep me playing a game I should have put down.
I did not say so before, but I enjoyed the 2 hour video you posted in the OP. I like learning about things and the motivations of the people behind them, but itâs hard to find content thatâs presented as well as that was. Out of all the âdiscussionsâ Iâve had on the subject of NFTs so far, this one has definitely proved the most educational. ^-^b
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Game companies are never going to give up ownership of their digital assets for any kind of third-party ownership system. The NFTs will always be stored on the game servers, and if anything happens to those servers, youâre out of luck. Youâll have zero legal recourse to recoup your loss in any way outside of maybe a tax write-off.
A Ubisoft executive would execute their own mother on live television with a baseball bat with a rusty nail in it, if it meant boosting quarterly profits by even .01%. In fact, Iâm pretty sure thatâs a job requirement and an interview question.
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This is my main problem with the âpromiseâ of NFTs. It is appealing to people that donât understand the applicable laws around actual ownership of digital goods and assets. I have had the unfortunate (but luckily, cheap â just shy of 5-figures cheap) experience of having to negotiate ownership of a digital asset (software code) which, at a minimum, involved questions around intellectual property and copyright. Since proponents of NFTs donât even begin to include these in their vocabulary, any claims of âownershipâ are not even on the table.
NFT proponents are also at the opposite side of the table of the old previous âdigital ownershipâ wars. Theyâre on the side of the MPAA and RIAA of the old Napster battles: hackers back then said âLOL I can copy a floppy/VHS/fileâ and the MPAA/RIAA tried their very best to enforce the concept of âownershipâ which includes language like licensing. That the NFT crowd also doesnât include that language in their vocabulary, also is a strong indication that claims of âownershipâ are not even on the table.
To see why, letâs quickly examine how âownershipâ outside the blockchain, in the real world, is enforced when a dispute arises. Parties involved appeal to the legal system. If a party is unwilling, the legal system appeals to force which is deemed lawful in sovereign states. Thatâs typically imprisonment and fines. Thus, people are compelled to comply under the implicit threat of force. And (based on my experience, which was multinational), there are treaties between sovereign states that agree to use this implicit threat of force in a reciprocal manner. Iâm purposefully not invoking specific legal machinations (ex: DMCA) because this is the broader principle at play.
Letâs contrast that âownership enforcementâ within a blockchain. When a dispute arises â someone copies bytes off of the blockchain itself, or they follow the URL on the blockchain and copy those bytes â what authority and recourse does the âownerâ actually have? If it is the legal system of the sovereign â congrats, it is a chain backed by the state, and itâs really fiat currency once again, âbecause the state says soâ. So to avoid that, the âownerâ has to threaten the use of their own force against the infringer/violator, and this libertarian ideal falls far short because in many sovereign states vigilante violence â the mere threat of force â will itself land a person in jail. So because of fiat power â the power of the sovereign nation â the âownerâ canât even use their own threat of force to enforce their own digital ownership rights on-chain.
Proponents then point out âbut the chain says they own it and everyone trusts the chainâ. Well, no, not everyone will trust the chain, let alone the same chain. There is no compelling threat of force that makes people say âI not only trust a chain, I trust the same chain as everyone else, and I promise to observe their âownershipâ rights as it says on chainâ. This principle of good-faith died spectacularly when â for all his technical prowess â Vitalik Buterin and friends made the incredibly unprincipled decision to fork the Ethereum chain because âoopsie it doesnât look right to usâ. There is no reason to believe the current-popular Ethereum chain is the ârightâ chain, when Ethereum Classic is the more principled chain, so now Pandoraâs Box is open: when Concerned Mothers of America create a non-CASM-containing chain fork, who is to say that is not the right one?
Thereâs no judiciary and no police for any blockchain â it just becomes a competition between cabals of developers over who has authority over the chain, but only for people who bought into the ownership promise. For everyone else, thereâs no axe/police+judiciary hanging over our head forcing us to recognize its legitimacy.
No one â Vitalik, you, me, anyone else â has that monopoly of âthreats-of-violence-that-donât-land-you-in-jailâ except sovereign states. Hence, the incredible rush to FOMO and hype to try to appeal to people with carrots instead of sticks. The truth is, some people simply canât be bought, but every person bleeds.
Iâm really surprised I have to point this out to people that play Eve of all places: the game notorious for players who only âownâ the things they are able to personally defend using threats of force.
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I did say âephemeral promiseâ, which I think already alludes to what you are saying about the durability and enforceability of that promise.
I will always welcome ways to make money legitimately through games I enjoy to play.
Games that you play for money is called gambling. If the result have any price on it, and the game involves random number generator or any random result in future, and maybe some skills, then its gambling, and as such will ruin peoples lifes, and game with it.
Cryptos are gambling full 100%, NFTs are gambling 100%, morally deplorable, despicable, you see people shill it, it borders on criminal action, and banning gambling, scams like crypto, nfts and microtransactions, would be first thing I would do in my own imaginary country.