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Games Technology

Virtual Guns in Videogames Could Soon Be Worth Real Money (wsj.com) 93

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Game makers are increasingly selling virtual weapons and gear as NFTs, extending the trendy digital deeds' reach but rankling some players. From a report: More videogame makers are selling virtual guns, helmets and other gear in the form of NFTs, a move that is increasingly pushing the trendy digital deeds into the average household. Players have been paying for virtual goods in games like "Grand Theft Auto Online" and "World of Warcraft" for years, but turning those items into nonfungible tokens would let gamers trade and resell them, making them into potentially valuable assets. The change also could mean that players who buy an NFT in one game could use it later in other games, on social media and in other corners of the internet -- an important step in developing an economy for the so-called metaverse. "FarmVille" maker Zynga and "Assassin's Creed" creator Ubisoft Entertainment are among the first big, publicly traded gaming companies to say they are experimenting with the strategy. Electronic Arts, Playtika and others are also looking into NFTs' potential use for engaging players.

"We're doing this because this may be part of the future of gaming," said Matt Wolf, Zynga's new vice president of blockchain gaming. "This is all about community building." Nonfungible tokens are essentially digital deeds that verify the authenticity of the items they represent as unique. They are the latest internet-based collecting craze, and so far they have come in forms ranging from digital artwork and trading cards to virtual real estate and sneakers, as well as concert tickets and even sports highlights. The tokens are stored on a blockchain, a digital ledger that shows when they were purchased and for how much, and ensures NFTs can't be duplicated or changed. Amid all that activity, NFTs' advent in videogames holds particular significance because gamers spend so much time in virtual worlds. That makes them potential early adopters in the metaverse -- a virtual realm where proponents say people will work, play and shop and where technology experts say the ability to buy and sell NFTs will be key.
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Virtual Guns in Videogames Could Soon Be Worth Real Money More

Virtual Guns in Videogames Could Soon Be Worth Real Money

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  • Blizzard could allow people to transfer their assets to other accounts and allow more seamless online marketplaces, any time they choose - they just don't.

    There is no need for NFT to enable this use case at all.

    • There is no need for NFT to enable this use case at all.

      But money tho.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        But money tho.

        Well laundered money.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      Blizzard could allow people to transfer their assets to other accounts

      Am glad to see somebody saying this.
      The idiots using NFTs seem to be oblivious to the whole point of blockchain (or relying on the Greater Fool theory) - blockchain and crypto does not need a central authority. That's what makes it different to other currency. But an NFT seems to be useless without it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fazig ( 2909523 )
        I've argued with people likening their NFT virtual assets to collectibles like Magic The Gathering trading cards of Warhammer figurines.

        Yeah, I don't think they get it. Or maybe I'm not getting what they're getting at.
        From my perspective: If Wizards of the Coasts or Games Workshop closes their doors for some reason, those trading cards and figurines still exist in the material world where you can still use them to play the respective games, because those games can be run independently from their creators

        • I've argued with people likening their NFT virtual assets to collectibles like Magic The Gathering trading cards of Warhammer figurines.

          Yeah, I don't think they get it. Or maybe I'm not getting what they're getting at.

          From my perspective: If Wizards of the Coasts or Games Workshop closes their doors for some reason, those trading cards and figurines still exist in the material world where you can still use them to play the respective games, because those games can be run independently from their creators.

          However what are you going to do with your pixel assets if the servers it exists on are shutting down? Will it be given to you so you can use it on a private server? Then how is it non fungible? Or if it goes down with the server, what kind of value does the NFT hold?

          If the NFT is built correctly -- i.e. stored on a decentralized network like Ethereum and pointing to an immutable image source like IPFS or Arweave -- then even if the equivalent of WotC or GW shuts down, you would still have the pixel assets. The only way you would lose your pixel asset would be if Ethereum and IPFS/Arweave shuts down. That's the whole point of decentralized storage -- it exists outside of the company that creates it. Now, what happens to the copyrights in the case they shut down is an

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by fazig ( 2909523 )

            However what are you going to do with your pixel assets if the servers it exists on are shutting down? Will it be given to you so you can use it on a private server? Then how is it non fungible? Or if it goes down with the server, what kind of value does the NFT hold?

          • If the NFT is built correctly -- i.e. stored on a decentralized network like Ethereum and pointing to an immutable image source like IPFS or Arweave -- then even if the equivalent of WotC or GW shuts down, you would still have the pixel assets.

            There's more to digital assets than pixels. They are modeled in some proprietary format used by the specific game engine only, and they only have meaning because of how they are used in the game. They are pointless without the game.

            What you're going to be sold by game companies is a single bit that says you own the XYZ Hyper Phase Rifle. You'll definitely be able to prove you own that "1", and it'll be preserved in the blockchain, forever.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by fazig ( 2909523 )
              Exactly.
              For the last 10 years I've been developing "Virtual Instruments" professionally among other things. Just a fancy word for software really, which performs the functions that a material instrument would do. But in order to do that it needs to run on a computer that supports the executable.

              That means two things: Within the system the virtual asset has value, because it is useful. Anyone with access to and understanding how to use it can use it, commercially for example.
              However outside of the system

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by N1AK ( 864906 )
            You're correct but I think you are missing the point. Yes you'd still have a NFT that could be verified but what you own is the ability to use a decal or item in a game that is defunct and thus the item can't be used. People keep making the point that an NFT could allow you to use items in multiple games, but this doesn't require NFTs. If you buy a gun in CoD there is no reason the devs couldn't tell you own in when you are playing the next CoD and give you the same item in the new game; there's no need for

            • People keep making the point that an NFT could allow you to use items in multiple games, but this doesn't require NFTs. If you buy a gun in CoD there is no reason the devs couldn't tell you own in when you are playing the next CoD and give you the same item in the new game; there's no need for an NFT to facilitate it.

              You're right that a single game company can support items across all of its games. But if you want to support items across games by different companies -- especially if one of those companies is now out of business -- then you need to have some kind of solution for that. A third-party centralized database that everyone agrees to use is one option, a decentralized database owned by the community is another.

              For me, the hard part to get around is how the incentives work out so that everyone agrees to use

            • I found this cool rock in my yard, it's billions of years old and it's the only one like it in the entire universe. Absolutely 100% unique.

              Bidding starts at US $500,000.

              That's what NFTs are like to me, except they aren't even unique, not really. And everyone with 2 brain cells to rub together knows it.

              Fortunately there are a lot of people out there with only one brain cell but who have lots of money. That's the target audience for NFTs.

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by Zack ( 44 )

                > That's what NFTs are like to me, except they aren't even unique, not really. And everyone with 2 brain cells to rub together knows it.

                Have you ever bought tickets to an event with assigned seating? All the tickets look the same, but they cost different amounts. Because you're not buying the *ticket* you're buying access to a seat and the ticket is just a token that you have indicating said access.

                So none of the tickets are the same. They're non-fungible tokens. Some get you into VIP areas and free

                • Except that NFTs are secure and can't be forged or counterfeit.

                  Oh you sweet summer child, that's just adorable.

                  The fact is that with an NFT, all you're buying is the idea that you own something, that's it, period.

                  When I was very little, someone purchased a star for me. Like, a real star... out somewhere in the galaxy. I had a photo of the star framed on my wall, with hand written coordinates of the star's location, and a little blurb about how it belonged to me.

                  The company that sold this "to me" no longer exists. In fact, many companies were in this business, selling s

      • Agreed... it's actually really hard to figure out the problem NFTs solve, the more you dig into them. All of their uses cases today rely on central authorities, which negate the need for the NFT in the first place.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Zack ( 44 )

          > All of their uses cases today rely on central authorities, which negate the need for the NFT in the first place.

          Not really. The blockchain doesn't rely on a central authority. Each entity can publish to the blockchain *and* can read the blockchain. But they can't alter the blockchain or change history as they could in their own database.

          Let's say Activision mints tokens for "Call of Duty" skins. Users can trade the tokens, blah, blah, blah, they get the skins in the game. But *anyone* else can re

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by brunes69 ( 86786 )

            Thanks for the lecture - but I fully understand what blockchain technology is and how it works likely at a deeper level than you do.

            Having a blockchain-based ledger of NFT tokens *that can only be redeemed on a single companies server - in this case EA - negates all purpose of NFTs. There is no need for a blockchain because *the only place that the token redeemable is inside EA's games that run in EA's network*. They could build and host this marketplace at any time, no NFTs required.

            NFTs only have value w

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Blizzard could allow people to transfer their assets to other accounts and allow more seamless online marketplaces, any time they choose - they just don't.

      There is no need for NFT to enable this use case at all.

      You've just basically defined what 99.999% of the "NFTs" being done for games are - they are just ways to transfer in-game loot from one account to another.

      And you're right, you don't need NFTs at all, in fact, you can bet practically all of it is just changing a few properties on the item - i.e., yo

      • they are just ways to transfer in-game loot from one account to another.

        Well, more like "transfer in-game loot (AKA real money) from a succession of suckers to the company's pockets", albeit with a few stops along the way.

        Hopefully there's a stiff "transfer fee" each time it gets passed to the next idiot, errr, I mean 'savvy buyer'.

        I mean, why not? If they're dumb enough to buy this crap they're dumb enough not to object to a 5% service charge. It just validates the incredible, nay, amazing value of this collection of totally unique pixels.

    • Actually this is the only place where NFTs might make sense. If done correctly, that is... if there was an NFT service which existed wholly independently of game companies it could allow you to "own" your digital goods even if a game gets completely shuttered. I can see a lot of potential, but of course I'm sure the Studios will cock it all up making them just as pointless as any other NFT.

      • If the NFT is built correctly -- i.e. stored on a decentralized network like Ethereum and pointing to an immutable image source like IPFS or Arweave

        Whatever data format that's used in game to render a digital asset, and whatever game engine is used to give it meaning are gone with the game.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by N1AK ( 864906 )
          This is the point that seems to be missed or glossed over by people claiming NFTs make items independent of games. If I buy a helmet as an NFT for the next CoD, the NFT doesn't include the textures, shape map, attributes etc of the helmet it just denotes ownership. To use that helmet in another game that game would need to include all that stuff, and although you could probably just transplant it from one game in a series to the next even if the game engine never changed much the textures etc will start to

      • Actually this is the only place where NFTs might make sense.

        Please stop trying to find ways to justify this ridiculous tulip orgy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      Blizzard could allow people to transfer their assets to other accounts and allow more seamless online marketplaces, any time they choose - they just don't.

      There is no need for NFT to enable this use case at all.

      It's just a money grab, most people see this for what it is already, they haven't been brain-washed enough yet. Ubisoft's NFTs have been shunned and mocked, they've flopped. Stalker 2 dev's dropped NFTs before the game is even released after a big backlash at their initial announcement. But the AAA g

  • in the Diablo editor days lol

  • They already are? (Score:5, Informative)

    by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) on Thursday December 23, 2021 @05:10PM (#62110579) Journal

    Steam marketplace has allowed trading CS:GO guns since 2015

  • No.
  • Said this would be just like when they did DLC and microtransactions. We'd eventually give in and start buying them. Maybe the crowd here won't. But give it 5 or 10 years and it'll be a generation of dumb young kids who don't know any better and they'll grow up thinking this is normal. It's amazing what you can get away with when you basically control the majority of culture that people experience.

  • That's 3 of 6 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Vintermann ( 400722 ) on Thursday December 23, 2021 @05:17PM (#62110595) Homepage

    3 of the 6 first stories on the front page are crypto hype right now. I never bet on when the bubble will burst, because the market can certainly stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent...

    But if I was a betting man I would say, pretty soon now.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Yes, though technically, NFTs don't require crypto. You just give each asset a unique identifier and have a database of ownership. I.e. rather than saying "Bob owns 'a gun'", you say "Bob owns gun #58261". Or conversely, "Gun #58261 is owned by Bob", depending on how you orient your database. In practice, you wouldn't even want that database on a blockchain, because you have to pay enormous transaction fees every time Bob and Dick trade the gun back and forth.

      There's nothing inherently wrong with treating

  • What's the game? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Even the poorest kid can make a chess set. They have good boards in the park, bring your own pieces or borrow a friend's. They're dirt cheap, and if you take a shine to chess it becomes a life long passion.

    There are a lot of games or sports like that. Any kid from a Favela can kick a tinfoil ball and become a global sensation (I think that's how Pele got started).

    If you're buying stuff to play in an online game, what's the game? It seems like it's just the ol' status game. You're not measuring skill or

  • You only need NFTs if there is no trusted party to control the events in the game, this you move this trust into the blockchain. But the game publisher, who runs the server, needs to be a trusted party. Otherwise you would not be playing there.

    NFTs, as blockchains, are a solution in search of a problem.

    • Re:NFTs (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday December 23, 2021 @05:25PM (#62110609)

      You only need NFTs if there is no trusted party

      From a technical perspective, you are correct.

      But from a marketing perspective, NFTs will fetch higher prices because of the hype.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      Oh they have a real problem, but it is a 'quiet voice' one. The people who are really excited about NFTs in games are the type who worry about getting caught cheating/scamming/tricking/whatever for items that they then sell. They do not trust the publisher because the publisher can punish them and that eats into their dream profits.
      • Don't forget the most important problem of all: "Video games are hundred billion dollar industry. How can I, a humble cryptobro with zero artistic talent and marginal programming skills get a percentage of that?"

  • Pry it out of my cold, dead virtual hand. (Score:5, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Thursday December 23, 2021 @05:29PM (#62110615)

    More videogame makers are selling virtual guns, helmets and other gear in the form of NFTs, ... but turning those items into nonfungible tokens would let gamers trade and resell them, ... and verify the authenticity of the items they represent as unique.

    Sounds like a serial number, so your virtual self and virtual guns can be tracked. Sales will probably come with a 3 microsecond waiting period and a background check (run in the foreground). No thanks. I want NFT gun *parts* so I can make virtual ghost guns -- or ghost virtual guns, or virtual ghost virtual guns (this is making my head hurt). Has anyone run this by the VNRA (or what's left of them)? ... :-)

  • Virtual Guns, and Gloves, and Knives, and music kits, etc for real hard-cold-cash, in 2012... and no pesky NFT BS either...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      But those aren't really worth anything, they have no real world value, at least that's was Valve is insisting because otherwise buying and opening loot boxes for the contents would legally be gambling.Yes, farcical.

  • This just gives me one more reason to not be at all concerned about modern games. Remember when you use to pay your $30-$60 once!!!! and get the game forever.

    It was bound to happen as video games increasingly got more popular beyond their original niche. Happens to everything that gets to popular. Greed takes over and what you get is a video game industry that looks as sad and weak as the movie industry. At least streaming has give us more control over when we choose to watch something.

  • You don't own anything... you're purchasing the rights to a URL. That's it. There's no centralized storage location. If the image gets moved, the site owner decides not to renew the domain, is hosted on a site that gets hit with a take down order....you've got nothing and you can't even find it and have no recourse.
    Mindboggling... just mindboggling....

  • This whole things reminds me of the Diablo 3 Market Place.

    I guess somethings don't change.

  • As long as they're targeting people with that kind of money, why not? :)

  • There's nothing "soon" about this. NFTs already exist in games and are a flop. https://www.engadget.com/ubiso... [engadget.com] They are overwhelmingly being rejected.

  • Big tax issues with that much less owner laws.

    If they want something like stocks in an game then they can just push an update that takes them away from you.

  • doesn't make much sense. Games already do this and it doesn't need block chain, nor does blockchain bring anything new to the table. Sounds like Zynga flailing around for more ways to make money from casual gamers.
  • Virtual guns are already worth money. As are virtual spaceships and other shite. They have been for well over a decade now, as John McClane put it "Welcome to the part pal!". The dimwitted thing about these exchanges is, the people that make the games and already sell such things already have these exchanges. Exchanges they don't need any blockchain to run, and for which they already get a cut from every sale, which is why they run them in the first place. Why on earth would they want their virtual items on
  • Video game auctions for real world money are almost as old as MMORPGs themselves. Slashdot has been posting articles about people selling virtual weapons and characters for money since at least 2002. https://www.playerauctions.com/ even lists Coinbase as a payment option so if Visa and Mastercard are not good enough you can already buy pixels with your Crypto which has been supported since 2015 effectively predating NFTs themselves.

  • Next up : you'll need a virtual gun permit to own a gun in your video game.

  • "We're doing this because this may be part of the future of gaming," said Matt Wolf, Zynga's new vice president of blockchain gaming. "This is all about community building."

    Translation:

    "We're doing this because we think we can make a shit ton of money," said Matt Wolf, Zynga's new vice president of blockchain gaming. "This is all about the benjamins."

    • It's ironic too that they would identify the community as motivation. Real world transactions are banned by most games because they cause more harm to the vast majority of players. Companies would love to sell more items to players, entire studios are funded entirely on the microtransaction model but it's hard as hell to find a way that won't create huge problems. If you encourage gold farming, your entire game economy will basically break. Bots, low wage workers, and hackers have a huge incentive to obtain

      • Plus the pay-to-win problem. It's not fun if you sink tens of hours into a game to fairly earn your BattleCruiser Mk8 Blasty-ship, and then lose to someone who casually threw some money in the game and got a ship twice as good as yours for no effort.

      • You summed it up nicely. All that kind of crap only benefits the company (and then often only in the short term).

        Not being a gamer I don't have any direct experience in what you mentioned, but I would be put off by that kind of stuff.

        It's the same reason I *hate* cheaters in online games- they ruin it for everyone and it doesn't take many of them to wreck a game. (I admit I love watching the "Catching Rust Cheaters" videos even though I don't play the game.)

        Frankly, "vice president of blockchain gaming" was

  • Tons of money is wasted on children's toys, but fortunately, most of them eventually grow up and move on to even more expensive toys.
  • For example, the US dollar. Without the backing of the US government and military, the US dollar is worthless. These virtual guns are not in the same league - they belong with cryptocurrencies and Dutch tulip bulbs.

  • The change also could mean that players who buy an NFT in one game could use it later in other games, on social media and in other corners of the internet -- an important step in developing an economy for the so-called metaverse.

    Unless all companies, game studios and indie developers all agree on a standard file format, 3D model format, textures format and all that, nobody's going to be using anything in other games. If you already can't do that with games that are all from the same studio, I wouldn't hold

    • The change also could mean that players who buy an NFT in one game could use it later in other games, on social media and in other corners of the internet -- an important step in developing an economy for the so-called metaverse.

      Unless all companies, game studios and indie developers all agree on a standard file format, 3D model format, textures format and all that, nobody's going to be using anything in other games.

      It's even easier than that. If this was a genuinely intended use case, then we could have guns purchased in CoD 2019 usable in CoD 2020. No need to complicate things; user X has item Y tied to the account, so item Y is available for all games which support the content X user already has.

      Instead, game devs are far happier just selling the items in both games and letting the 'whales' who care enough to have the items buy them multiple times.

      We don't need blockchains or NFTs or any of this needless complexity

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