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4:32pm on Wednesday, 13th April, 2022:
Anecdote
One of the suggested cool uses of non-fungible tokens in games is that you will be able to use them to transfer objects from one game to another.
Setting aside any pay-to-win concerns, the main problem with this idea — which game developers have been aware of for at least three decades — is that an "object" in a game is made up of a set of properties plus the code that gives them function and the assets that give them form. You can move objects between games where the properties and the associated code and assets are identical (this happens when transferring characters from one server to another server of the same MMORPG, for example), but if they're not the same then you need to export them using some universal format that can be imported into the target game. The objects in the games are not the NFTs: the universal format descriptions are the NFTs. Otherwise, you couldn't destroy the object from the game you were leaving and create its mirror in the game you were taking it to, as it would still remain in the original game.
Now the nature of this universal format looks as if it should be a nightmare to specify, largely because it is one. That's because it's trying to keep properties and code and assets abstract enough to transfer but concrete enough to retain an identity. They can't retain an identity, though, because identity requires a context and they have no context: they're universal. They only have an identity when they're realised in a game world in tangible form.
If we remove this requirement for identity, transference of objects between game worlds actually becomes much, much easier. We can abstract away all the properties and code and assets and refer only to "construction points". If you have a kick-ass sword in one game and want a kick-ass lightsabre in another game, you ask the first game to destroy the object and convert it into universally-accepted construction points, then you ask the second game to create an object to your specifications such that it uses the same number of construction points.
Now, however, we don't need NFTs. We already have a perfectly-serviceable implementation of construction points: money. You basically sell your kick-ass sword to the first game for dollars and buy your kick-ass lightsabre from the second game using those dollars. You don't even have to spend the same amount of dollars — or indeed any dollars at all.
Looked at this way, then, if you want a transferable object in a game then you pay real money for it. When you no longer want it, you sell it back to the game (I would expect for somewhat less than you paid for it) and receive some money in return. You can subsequently invest that money how you see fit, whether in another game's objects or in something real-world such as food or hairbrushes.
This is fine when the kick-ass sword is imported (that is, you paid for it), but what if it isn't? Kick-ass swords have to come from somewhere, and the general expectency for transferable objects seems to be that if you obtained your kick-ass sword through gameplay then you should be able to take it with you when you leave the game in which you obtained it. A player kills a boss, picks up the kick-ass sword it drops, then looks for the "destroy and convert to NFT" button. If we're using money instead of NFTs, this would mean that the developer would have to pay the player for the kick-ass sword — no way would they do that! They can create as many kick-ass swords as they like, they're worth nothing to the developer.
If they use NFTs rather than money, the same logic applies only one step removed. The player's kick-ass sword is destroyed and an NFT for a kick-ass-melée-weapon universal format description is created. That NFT isn't worthless, though: it has value. The player could sell it to another player — that's the whole point of NFTs. OK, so if the player could sell it, so could the developer. By minting an NFT for the player, the developer is effectively giving that player money that would have been theirs if they'd just minted the NFT and sold it on the open market. Basically, then, if you want to take that kick-ass sword with you then the developer is only going to let you do it if you compensate them for their lost income to create it. Let's hope that when you want to bring it into another game, the developer of that one doesn't also want a payment to allow it in. We're basically back to money again.
There may be other uses for NFTs in games, but for inter-game object transfer, really, if you want to have it, just use money.
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Copyright © 2022 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).