We have entered a new era of video gaming monetization, one in which the in-game assets themselves can be tokenized and traded as NFTs even outside the game. However, old issues are catching up with this new monetization model as well.
“There are a small set of important problems that the blockchain model solves but that’s about it,” said “jake s,” a purported developer on Reddit. “But it seems like oftentimes people expect you to shove these into products where they are not needed. With this whole NFT thing, they’re literally coming up with a cool solution and then trying to find a problem that can be solved by it.”
Buying a full game and still paying for in-game content is nothing new. Those extra items could be considered a cosmetic flair, while the core game remains accessible. However, with online multiplayer games, those payable extras, like loot boxes, tend to yield an unfair advantage to players, leading some to dub the model as “pay to win”. Both Activision ($8.1 billion revenue for 2021) and Electronic Arts ($5.5 billion revenue for 2021) have had such issues.
There has been plenty of public backlash towards NFTs in gaming. Ubisoft’s new blockchain platform, Ubisoft Quartz, received so much negative attention that the company took down all mention of it from their social media platforms. As the world of play-to-earn gaming continues to grow, NFTs will stay a powerful part of the current gaming ecosystem. But NFTs and crypto will continue to be looked at through a critical lens as gamers are cajoled into buying products they don’t need.
(All information was provided by The Tokenist)
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