A man from Australia has apparently pirated every single NFT in existence.

[spam musubi]

But the developer would see profit from people being able to resell their game, that's the whole point. I could perfectly see a party like Devolver do this. They have enough clout and games to make a basic store but nowhere near the infrastructure to set up their own private marketplace.

My main argument in this is really just that people keep pointing to big marktleaders who've had a grip on the marketplace AND the infrastructure for a decade and say "look they haven't done it so obviously no developer or publisher want to do it" while the whole idea behind blockchains is to move away from that kind of centralized power. Yeah, ofcourse Steam isn't going to allow it, why would they? They're king of the world. They'd be giving up power. It's the other that have alot to gain.


What logistical mess with selling an NFT? It doesn't cost the company anything to make one.


What incentive does GOG have with selling DRM-free games? If they research it and -IF- projections are more people are likely to buy their products if it's possible for them to recoup the cost by reselling the game when they're done with it, it's a win for everyone.

Let's say I'm an indie developer. I make a game, and I price it at 30 USD and I hope I'll sell 300k copies of it. That's 9 million revenue, of which 30% goes to Steam, so 6.3 million for me.

To make the same revenue I do on Steam but I self publish, I'd need to sell 210.000 copies of my game. Very unlikely without the power of Steam, AND I'd need to cover infrastructure costs like servers and a storefront.

If I make the game an NFT and I allow reselling where there is a 50/50 split when a user resells the game for let's say an average of 20 USD (so 10 USD for the seller, 10 USD for me), I don't need any servers. All I need is a way to link the NFT to a user on a blockchain and to verify the user each time he logs in to the game and check the NFT status linked to the user. Now I'd need to project how many people are likely to buy the game at full price and how many % of those people are likely to resell the game afterwards. Are more people likely to try my game because they can easily resell it and recoup 10 USD? How good is my game and how likely are they to resell it? Those are still open questions. But in any case, the treshold to reach profitability is already lower because I get 100% of the revenue of each new game sold, I get 50% of the revenue of each game resold and I don't have to upkeep a complicated storefront or keep any server infrastructure running. Will this get me beyond the 6.3million I would've gotten from Steam? I'm pretty sure any publishers not Valve is already doing the calculations.

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I love these artificially constructed scenarios that are designed to prove NFTs could have value. Like "you don't need a server to handle the transaction of used game sales the NFT handles it", how do you think the receiver of the second hand game is going to get the data for the game? From the aether? No, they'll have to download it from the server anyway!And this doesn't solve the issue of the person who sells off their game still being able to access the data. You still need a server call to prevent that too. You're literally reinventing the wheel here, you will still need the same tech we have today to handle anything but the actual transaction itself, and the tech today can handle transactions too so there is no need. This is a contrived scenario.

The problem with all the justifications for NFTs is that 1- NFTs are not the actual content, so you still need infrastructure to deliver and authenticate and then later remove the content and 2- NFTs are simply transaction records so anything that is non transactional (e.g. actually consuming the content) are poorly addressed by them and you have to engineer these scenarios to act otherwise.

*: yes I know decentralized blockchain file systems exist too but by design they're immutable aka things can never be deleted off of them which makes them extremely problematic because people can store things like sexualized images of minors or non consensual images and you can never delete them so that's a terrible idea to begin with

 

[Jebusman]

Let's say I'm an indie developer. I make a game, and I price it at 30 USD and I hope I'll sell 300k copies of it. That's 9 million revenue, of which 30% goes to Steam, so 6.3 million for me.

Click to shrink...

Most indie devs aren't clearing that many copies of a game. We're talking in the 1k to 'maybe' the low 10k range for your average "success", and priced way less than $30USD. Indie devs around the world aren't just all millionaires.

because people can store things like sexualizas images of minors or non consensual images and you can never delete them so that's a terrible idea to begin with

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honestly I'm shocked there isn't like, a PedoCoin or something by now.

 

[Kenai]

Most indie devs aren't clearing that many copies of a game. We're talking in the 1k to 'maybe' the low 10k range for your average "success", and priced way less than $30USD. Indie devs around the world aren't just all millionaires.

Click to shrink...

That and I am genuinely worried that if the NFT thing does actually take off in a meaningful way (unlike now), indie devs might feel obligated to do the NFT thing even if they don't want to, lest the one with NFTs is seen as a "better value" (ugh). Not to mention I have no idea how an indie dev would begin to implement the process of managing the logistics involved in a theoretical digital used game market...most of these scenarios seem to ignore it lol

 

[DiipuSurotu]

What I don't understand with NFT's is why do they just encrypt the ownership in the blockchain? Why not encrypt the entire file in the blockchain and have the media completely decentralized? Or am I wrong about how NFTs work?

Click to shrink...

The creator of NFT wanted to do that at first, but they realized it was too costly in terms of energy and time, so they decided that encrypting only to the ownership would be more efficient.

There are some NFTs that do include the entire file in the blockchain but they are much rarer.

 

[tadaima]

NFT almost never carry the legal ownership of the digital art IP rights. What was the first/original is irrelevant if you don't get any legal claim over usage.

NFT technology is hard to use for legitimate purposes since it tends to be inefficient and is made to avoid having authorities that can force changes/corrections. I suppose that can be used sometimes when none of the parties trust anyone or in small scale if you just want an standarized way to have a digital ledger and don't care for efficiency.

Click to shrink...

This is right. Owning an NFT does not give you permission to reproduce other than for private usage, unless the author gave that permission. The same as owning a physical piece of media does not provide permission to reproduce other than within the bounds of the law (e.g. backup copies of a ROM for personal usage).

The NFT is basically the same as a physical-printed piece of data. It is tangible evidence that you own it, but not necessarily the IP rights or the rights to reproduce. Sure, you (and others) can reproduce it, but in accordance with the wishes of the owner, and depending on your jurisdiction the law, you shouldn't.

That being said, it is technically possible to connect copyright or even IP rights to an NFT. An NFT is a type of contract, after all.

Her point is that media companies have no reason to allow users to resell their digital licences because they want consumers to buy directly from them. These companies can implement reselling of digital things right now, without the help of blockchain at all, if they wanted to. Just look at Steam marketplace. You don't need blockchain for this. It's not about slow adoption of tech, it's about not wanting consumers to be able to trade their digital things.

Blockchain will not give consumers what we want because companies don't want us to trade purchases, not because they don't have the tech.

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Indeed, I don't think I argued my opinion of whether or not corporations will/will not, should/should not adopt the tech, just that companies have historically been slow to do so.

So while we are seeing a lot of experimentation in the space, especially from smaller/faster-moving developers and those which were already doing things with blockchain, I think we will be waiting a long time before any CEO of a publicly traded company is willing to put his or her neck on the line before there is a clear path to higher profits.

One unique feature of NFTs, or more specifically smart contracts, is that automated triggers can be built-in. For example, automatically providing kick-back to the original creator of the NFT when it is resold anywhere. I personally think smart contracts provide a wealth of opportunities, and we've just scratched the surface. As I said before, an NFT is basically a contract – and you can write anything into a contract – except this type of contract is unbreakable and can trigger applications and events.

Ultimately, the job of a CEO is to create more wealth for shareholders while mitigating risk. It isn't worth gambling your company on something so early stage, and this tech is still very immature. As smart contracts and blockchain become more mature, and if a clear path to revenue can be found, the larger corporations will adopt.

 

[Jintor]

What I don't understand with NFT's is why do they just encrypt the ownership in the blockchain? Why not encrypt the entire file in the blockchain and have the media completely decentralized? Or am I wrong about how NFTs work?

Click to shrink...

I think since all nodes (at least the major nodes) need to be synced, you would almost immediately run into storage and data transfer issues, especially if every one on the chain is adding files. Not to mention the gas fees. You could do it more easily on a blockchain with less nodes, I think? But it would still be exponentially difficult for verification etc

 

[Yahsper]

I am talking about the theoretical scenario of implementing ways to earn profit from a "used digital" game sale. The actual NFT creation isn't the problem, or at least it's not got this particular problem. Think about the thread we are in lol. This rando guy can suddenly sell all this stuff he just pirated. What does that mean for the "real owners"?

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This guy the thread is about can't sell anything. He doesn't own the NFT's. For the 'real owners' it makes literally zero difference. It hasn't made a dent in the market. Other people being able to right click and save isn't something NFT jpg owners care about.

DRM-free games really aren't comparable at all? You'll have to explain why you're bringing that up. They aren't the same thing lol. We actually have a lot of data on the appeal of DRM-free games, and many examples over time of forced DRM games having said DRM removed due to backlash (the most famous recent ones I can think of is Sony's C-Bomb fiasco, or the original XBone). The industry is repeatedly trying to make used games sales harder to do, not easier.

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I bring DRM-free games up because sometimes companies make decisions because they believe the goodwill it gives them will give them more revenue and distinguish them from other stores. Creating a DRM-free marketplace is not a charity. They're banking on how offering DRM-free games will differentiate them enough and lure enough buyers to keep them sustainable. Much like how a storefront could decide to allow reselling games through NFT's to lure in an audience, differentiate themselves from others and keep them sustainable.

Not to be mean but most of this is being extremely presumptuous. Again, we have a lot of data regarding pushback of the entire videogame industry to restrict the sale of used games available to us, and several articles are available with some quick Google searches.

How much do industry CEOs hate used games? A whole, whole lot

Silicon Knights chief Denis Dyack says that if used games continue to wreak havoc on the gaming business, "there's not going to be an industry."

www.cnet.com

Video game publishers complain (again) about used video game sales; GameStop defends practice (again) | TechCrunch

Help me out here, guys. I have zero sympathy for video game developers and publishers who cry poverty vis-à-vis used video game sales. At the same time, I have zero sympathy for the likes of GameStop, what with its hyperactive employees always trying to sell me some added nonsense, when it...

techcrunch.com

https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mksc.2018.1142 (even a recent study from Google Scholar's database because the issue is so prevalent in discussions)


Always-on DRM, region-locks, pre-order exclusives and micro-transations (and more) are all correlated with this effort to minimize used game sales, so forgive me for being extremely skeptical that the industry is going to implement any of this technology as you describe, especially when (again) it's a lot of work and has the very "dangerous" scenario of cannibalizing their new game sales.

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I mean, first of all, those articles are old as heck and about physical sales. So we're talking two situations here:
- the games industry hated the reselling of games in the physical era because there was no way for publishers to make any revenue from this
- the games industry hates the reselling of games in the digital era because there are very few storefronts and they take a cut of each sale. So either you create your own store with a secondhand marketplace which costs a lot of money to create and you then have to upkeep (while even the likes of Epic can barely sustain a basic storefront without any extras) or you leave it in the hands of one of the big players like Steam, Google and Apple and give them a 30% cut on every new sale and every resale.

So it doesn't happen because either you make a massive, risky investment in a storefront, or there is more risk involved in reaching profitability (since the market becomes more complicated and due to the revenue shares, you have a longer road to take) AND you give the storefront owners even more power over the overall marketplace.

NFT's and blockchain circumvent all this and creates new opportunities because you don't need that infrastructure, you don't need to create an advanced storefront and you get to keep all the revenue and it's under your full control.

I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm just saying it's not weird that loads of publishers are examining the situation and its possibilities to gain more independence from the likes of Valve, Apple, Google,...and that there's little point in looking at the current market leaders because they have absolutely no incentive to change the system they're master of.

Most indie devs aren't clearing that many copies of a game. We're talking in the 1k to 'maybe' the low 10k range for your average "success", and priced way less than $30USD. Indie devs around the world aren't just all millionaires.

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I mean, duh, I'm just using random numbers to make a clear example.

 

[Jebusman]

I mean, duh, I'm just using random numbers to make a clear example.

Click to shrink...

But it's not a "realistic" example. You're saying that indie devs (who already struggle to make it) should buy into the idea that rather than customers always buying a new copy (in which they receive whatever typical split they agreed with on the storefront they're selling it, 70/30 or more), they could set up the ability for their games to be sold used, in which they would "definitely" receive less than half per aftermarket sale (because they still need to pay SOMEONE to host the game and actually interface with the blockchain, and sellers wouldn't be content with only getting 50% of a cut of the thing they "own") and sellers will undercut retail price in order to encourage buying it from them, not new copies from the storefront, leading to a race to the bottom in pricing when you reach the point where supply outstrips demand.

In your example, who is providing the service and how are they getting paid to accommodate these changes in ownership of the license? Who is actually enforcing the removal of the license from the seller? I don't see the scenario where a small publisher builds this system in the way you're describing because what's actually in it for them rather than going through a regular storefront/marketplace? You still need someone to handle distribution and enforcement.

Used sales function in physical media because physical media is both finite by nature and degrades, providing a clear choice between buying new (in pristine condition and in increasingly limited supply) or used (in varying degrees of condition) with prices set accordingly.

Digital media is perfect. There is no degradation. A used copy is exactly the same as a new copy. It is infinitely copy able. There is no risk of demand outpacing supply. So if no one is incentivised to actually buy new (because there is zero benefit over used), used copies dominate the market and drives prices (and thus the actual revenue the dev sees) into the ground. How do you solve this? Only sell a finite amount of "digital" copies? Create scarcity in a market where there is no technological reason for it to exist?

I just don't see a scenario in which a dev willingly subjects themselves to this because they probably see they can't afford to. Retail sales (in which they get a larger cut of a larger price) is going to make them more money than the used sales they'll see at significantly lower prices and getting a significantly lower cut.

Like we have an indie dev spelling it out for you pretty clearly:

Allowing resell of digital games destroys the digital game market and for that reason, it's never going to be seriously attempted by any of the big companies. There's no functional difference between a new digital game and a used digital game so after initial launch, the developer/publisher would never sell a single copy again AND game prices would rapidly drop even faster than they do now (players would be encouraged to undercut each other to resell their game, unlike developers who have incentives to try to keep the price up) which would result in initial sales being far weaker than they are now. The only way you could avoid this would be if you kept initial stock far lower so that demand isn't met, but in order to make the same amount of money with far fewer copies of the game, you'd have to drastically increase the price - people complained about $70 games so I'm sure $500 games will go over really well.

Practically speaking, if it was ever mandated by law that digital goods that were sold had to be resellable, everyone would just stop selling digital goods entirely because you can't make a living that way. You'd be stuck with freemium games & subscription services.

Oh and I just want to add that this would hurt small developers far more than it hurt big corporations. Big corporations could transition to making everything subscription & freemium based (a lot of them are already doing this), but the vast majority of indie developers would go out of business immediately.

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Like, if we look at the Steam Community Market, the example people love to go to because it's essentially what NFT proponents describe but already existing, Valve takes a 5% cut off sales there.

That's it. 5%

Some of their first party titles also take a small cut (10-15% I think?), devs take a small cut, but otherwise the seller is looking at 80-90% of the sale price as revenue for items on the marketplace.

I don't think realistically a dev could skim much more than that without angering sellers.

So how is a dev going to survive off that cut of a used sale that will "definitely" be underpriced compared to retail? How many used sales would they need to match even a single retail sale?

 

[zoozilla]

This is never going to happen precisely because there is no way to make more money from a resale vs just having someone buy the full purchase again. The entire concept of a "used" digital good doesn't make sense, it's the same item and doesn't degrade, get damaged over time or take up space in your home like physical games. It's why the entire industry has been so adamant about not letting us re-sell games at all, they don't make as much money as a new sale. Even without the logistical mess involved with "selling" the game or NFT or whatever (that, again, would mean said company doing more work so that they can earn less money), it's never going to be worth more than simply directing an interested buyer to a new sale.

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That's true for a typical digital release that's not limited in number.

But imagine a "limited edition" of a game that's actually limited to 500 copies like a physical edition. Then copies would increase in value as they become more enticing to collectors.

Our glorious future!

 

[Yahsper]

But it's not a "realistic" example. You're saying that indie devs (who already struggle to make it) should buy into the idea that rather than customers always buying a new copy (in which they receive whatever typical split they agreed with on the storefront they're selling it, 70/30 or more), they could set up the ability for their games to be sold used, in which they would "definitely" receive less than half per aftermarket sale (because they still need to pay SOMEONE to host the game and actually interface with the blockchain, and sellers wouldn't be content with only getting 50% of a cut of the thing they "own") and sellers will undercut retail price in order to encourage buying it from them, not new copies from the storefront, leading to a race to the bottom in pricing when you reach the point where supply outstrips demand.

In your example, who is providing the service and how are they getting paid to accommodate these changes in ownership of the license? Who is actually enforcing the removal of the license from the seller? I don't see the scenario where a small publisher builds this system in the way you're describing because what's actually in it for them rather than going through a regular storefront/marketplace? You still need someone to handle distribution and enforcement.

Used sales function in physical media because physical media is both finite by nature and degrades, providing a clear choice between buying new (in pristine condition and in increasingly limited supply) or used (in varying degrees of condition) with prices set accordingly.

Digital media is perfect. There is no degradation. A used copy is exactly the same as a new copy. It is infinitely copy able. There is no risk of demand outpacing supply. So if no one is incentivised to actually buy new (because there is zero benefit over used), used copies dominate the market and drives prices (and thus the actual revenue the dev sees) into the ground. How do you solve this? Only sell a finite amount of "digital" copies? Create scarcity in a market where there is no technological reason for it to exist?

I just don't see a scenario in which a dev willingly subjects themselves to this because they probably see they can't afford to. Retail sales (in which they get a larger cut of a larger price) is going to make them more money than the used sales they'll see at significantly lower prices and getting a significantly lower cut.

Like we have an indie dev spelling it out for you pretty clearly:




Like, if we look at the Steam Community Market, the example people love to go to because it's essentially what NFT proponents describe but already existing, Valve takes a 5% cut off sales there.

That's it. 5%

Some of their first party titles also take a small cut (10-15% I think?), devs take a small cut, but otherwise the seller is looking at 80-90% of the sale price as revenue for items on the marketplace.

I don't think realistically a dev could skim much more than that without angering sellers.

So how is a dev going to survive off that cut of a used sale that will "definitely" be underpriced compared to retail? How many used sales would they need to match even a single retail sale?

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This is alot of stuff that already long has been discussed in this thread so I'm not even going to go in detail here. If you're really honestly curious about those issues, look up what smart contracts are. There's no 'system' to be built. It's based on smart contracts automatically executed by the blockchain. It can even set maximum and minimum prices to prevent a race to the bottom for prices. The developer has as much or as little control over this as they want.

 

[svacina]

This is alot of stuff that already long has been discussed in this thread so I'm not even going to go in detail here. If you're really honestly curious about those issues, look up what smart contracts are. There's no 'system' to be built. It's based on smart contracts automatically executed by the blockchain. It can even set maximum and minimum prices to prevent a race to the bottom for prices. The developer has as much or as little control over this as they want.

Click to shrink...

Where the hell do you download the game from in this glorious future, btw?

 

[excelsiorlef]

NFT's and blockchain circumvent all this and creates new opportunities because you don't need that infrastructure, you don't need to create an advanced storefront and you get to keep all the revenue and it's under your full control.

Click to shrink...

WHERE ARE THE GAMES AND MOVIES GOING TO BE STORED?

And by advanced storefront do you mean like a UI app that makes it easy to find and buy.

Do you think consumers are going to want 25 different digital movie streaming apps for all their purchases across every studio. Each one having to be developed to work across multiple platforms of settop boxes, phones and tablets... what do you expect Disney will just integrate digital purchases into D+ essentially saying hey stream this movie or buy it via pointless nft integration for no reason because why would you buy it it's right there

And then even more for game devs

 

[Sadsic]

WHERE ARE THE GAMES AND MOVIES GOING TO BE STORED?

And by advanced storefront do you mean like a UI app that makes it easy to find and buy.

Do you think consumers are going to want 25 different digital movie streaming apps for all their purchases across every studio. Each one having to be developed to work across multiple platforms of settop boxes, phones and tablets... what do you expect Disney will just integrate digital purchases into D+ essentially saying hey stream this movie or buy it via pointless nft integration for no reason because why would you buy it it's right there

And then even more for game devs

Click to shrink...

The longterm solution being used currently for housing files for NFTs is on IPFS

 

[excelsiorlef]

That's true for a typical digital release that's not limited in number.

But imagine a "limited edition" of a game that's actually limited to 500 copies like a physical edition. Then copies would increase in value as they become more enticing to collectors.

Our glorious future!

Click to shrink...

But the dev or studio would get minimal cut of the price increase


They could do this right now if they wanted and charge a premium price, take it all in... they don't.

 

[Delusibeta]

The longterm solution being used currently for housing files for NFTs is on IPFS

Click to shrink...

Considering the immutable nature of IPFS would suck for games (since any updates would be additional to the storage, you wouldn't be able to take prior versions down), it's far from the biggest problem with IPFS:

*: yes I know decentralized blockchain file systems exist too but by design they're immutable aka things can never be deleted off of them which makes them extremely problematic because people can store things like sexualizas images of minors or non consensual images and you can never delete them so that's a terrible idea to begin with

Click to shrink...

 

[excelsiorlef]

The longterm solution being used currently for housing files for NFTs is on IPFS

Click to shrink...

How much will terabytes upon terabytes of storage cost with lightning speed access cost

Considering the immutable nature of IPFS would suck for games (since any updates would be additional to the storage, you wouldn't be able to take prior versions down), it's far from the biggest problem with IPFS:

Click to shrink...

Ahahahaha

 

[excelsiorlef]

NFTs are the future bro, we'll be able to do all this shit that we can either already do right now or could do right now but don't want to, only way worse

 

[Deleted member 5876]

Expect the entire idea behind NFTs is that they can't be pirated.

Click to shrink...

No it's not.

 

[collige]

One thing to note about IPFS is that it doesn't actually guarantee access to whatever's added to it long term unless a node on their network explicitly goes out of their way to do so for a set of data. This effectively makes that node act in a centralized manner again with the other edges of the network just acting as a secure CDN. It's similar to how archive.org has torrents for all of the stuff it hosts: it's a welcome addition, especially for the most valuable content, but seeders can't be relied upon to always be present so you just end up downloading normally most of the time.

This makes NFTs a particularly poor choice of content to be stored on IPFS since someone's privately owned digital art collection is unlikely to be traded or viewed very often once the initial hype dies down. IPFS does garbage collection on unused data by design so a more likely scenario is that older NFTs are going to be deleted to make space for the new NFTs.

 

[Striferser]

Click to shrink...

Damn, what a legend.

 

[Lidl]

One thing to note about IPFS is that it doesn't actually guarantee access to whatever's added to it long term unless a node on their network explicitly goes out of their way to do so for a set of data. This effectively makes that node act in a centralized manner again with the other edges of the network just acting as a secure CDN. It's similar to how archive.org has torrents for all of the stuff it hosts: it's a welcome addition, especially for the most valuable content, but seeders can't be relied upon to always be present so you just end up downloading normally most of the time.

This makes NFTs a particularly poor choice of content to be stored on IPFS since someone's privately owned digital art collection is unlikely to be traded or viewed very often once the initial hype dies down. IPFS does garbage collection on unused data by design so a more likely scenario is that older NFTs are going to be deleted to make space for the new NFTs.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, this has been addressed in earlier nft threads as an issue with the current implementation. This is why to me only NFTs stored inside the blockchain (i.e. raw data or code) aka on-chain NFTs are permanent in he sense that art is permanent.

Nonetheless, there's also pinning to avoid your nft being scraped from IPFS: https://docs.ipfs.io/concepts/persistence/#persistence-versus-permanence.
To address your point "seeders can't be relied upon". That's exactly true and why an economy is needed to facilitate decentralized storage. And this on the other hand, is exactly why you see crypto being attached to existing services and ideas. Because it enables economies around said services and ideas and you absolutely need those in order to keep decentralized services running.

From what I understand filecoin is supposed to be IPFS' incentive layer, but both are still separate from each other. However, there's also multiple other crypto projects revolving around decentralized storage: https://www.arweave.org/ https://sia.tech/ https://www.storj.io to name a few.

 

[Lidl]

Damn, what a legend.

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Why? That's actually easier to accomplish than taking screenshots. It's just simple web scrapping.
Apparently the file is also padded to make its size look more impressive than it really is. And looking at this guy's twitter, he seems very eager to attract attention.



But hey, more power to him.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Why? That's actually easier to accomplish than taking screenshots. It's just simple web scrapping.
Apparently the file is also padded to make its size look more impressive than it really is. And looking at this guy's twitter, he seems very eager to attract attention.



But hey, more power to him.

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A 17TB empty file? Wtf??

 

[Älg]

This entire article is based on a misunderstanding of wha NFTs are. No one is claiming that NFTs makes the media they represent unavailable to the general public, as a matter of fact they do just the opposite. Downloading the media associated with an NFT is not piracy, and it is not unexpected behaviour. Literally every single NFT is, and always has been, publicly available on the internet; it's basically a feature of the technology.

Of course this is still funny in the sense that it's messing with a bunch of stupid idiots who don't understand this.

 

[riotous]

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NFTs are dumb; but so is this tweet. They wrote a crawler that grabbed the images..there is no "decrypting" there is no "tokenized copy of the image."

It's just the "bot" version of right-click downloading over and over again.

 

[collige]

Yeah, this has been addressed in earlier nft threads as an issue with the current implementation. This is why to me only NFTs stored inside the blockchain (i.e. raw data or code) aka on-chain NFTs are permanent in he sense that art is permanent.

Nonetheless, there's also pinning to avoid your nft being scraped from IPFS: https://docs.ipfs.io/concepts/persistence/#persistence-versus-permanence.
To address your point "seeders can't be relied upon". That's exactly true and why an economy is needed to facilitate decentralized storage. And this on the other hand, is exactly why you see crypto being attached to existing services and ideas. Because it enables economies around said services and ideas and you absolutely need those in order to keep decentralized services running.

From what I understand filecoin is supposed to be IPFS' incentive layer, but both are still separate from each other. However, there's also multiple other crypto projects revolving around decentralized storage: https://www.arweave.org/ https://sia.tech/ https://www.storj.io to name a few.

Click to shrink...

I addressed the concept of pinning in my last post. The concept works fine on a technical level of course but if the incentives for storage are coming from some other service, then the situation is not really any different from the entity who set up that service just paying for cloud hosting. Either way, access to the data i'm entitled to as an NFT owner would be contingent on the health of a separate economy.

 

[Kenai]

This guy the thread is about can't sell anything. He doesn't own the NFT's. For the 'real owners' it makes literally zero difference. It hasn't made a dent in the market. Other people being able to right click and save isn't something NFT jpg owners care about.

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They should when they entire thing NFTs are supposed to be for is proving ownership of something and there is now literally no difference between this and the other due to these being the tokenized versions. So, again, who and what is going to discern the difference? Why should anyone care about said difference? How is it going to be enforced?

I bring DRM-free games up because sometimes companies make decisions because they believe the goodwill it gives them will give them more revenue and distinguish them from other stores. Creating a DRM-free marketplace is not a charity. They're banking on how offering DRM-free games will differentiate them enough and lure enough buyers to keep them sustainable. Much like how a storefront could decide to allow reselling games through NFT's to lure in an audience, differentiate themselves from others and keep them sustainable.

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Differentiating a storefront is a common tactic among different companies, yes. But that begs the question of how much more appealing that reseller market actually is for the company to impement. You are not just magically snapping your fingers and having a way to sell/buy used with a transaction here. Payment verification systems in a secondhand market alone aren't going to be cheap, and there'smore than that + upkeep of said systems.

I mean, first of all, those articles are old as heck and about physical sales. So we're talking two situations here:
- the games industry hated the reselling of games in the physical era because there was no way for publishers to make any revenue from this
- the games industry hates the reselling of games in the digital era because there are very few storefronts and they take a cut of each sale. So either you create your own store with a secondhand marketplace which costs a lot of money to create and you then have to upkeep (while even the likes of Epic can barely sustain a basic storefront without any extras) or you leave it in the hands of one of the big players like Steam, Google and Apple and give them a 30% cut on every new sale and every resale.

So it doesn't happen because either you make a massive, risky investment in a storefront, or there is more risk involved in reaching profitability (since the market becomes more complicated and due to the revenue shares, you have a longer road to take) AND you give the storefront owners even more power over the overall marketplace.

NFT's and blockchain circumvent all this and creates new opportunities because you don't need that infrastructure, you don't need to create an advanced storefront and you get to keep all the revenue and it's under your full control.

I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm just saying it's not weird that loads of publishers are examining the situation and its possibilities to gain more independence from the likes of Valve, Apple, Google,...and that there's little point in looking at the current market leaders because they have absolutely no incentive to change the system they're master of.

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First of all, they aren't THAT old. Two of them are less than 10 years old, and the third was accepted for publication in 2019 (meaning the study was considered relevant and verified over a long period of time cause their research was put under a ton of scrutiny and considered accepted afterwards). It assumes that if there is new research to counteract those claims, there would be new information to offset said studies, but there is not (at least not that I can find).

Second of all, the keep problem behind both remains: they are not making more money off a used sale than a new one. They are not. They have not. They continue to not. No matter how you dress it. So arguing that somehow they have changed there minds, and that creating a used market is suddenly going to make them more money "now" is any different, requires a leap of logic that just isn't there.

Physical sales are even more relevant to this discussion because there are far more tangible differences/downsides to a used physical game vs a used digital game. Yet the industry as been trying for decades to stamp that out. The differences between a "used digital" and |new digital" are non-existent by comparison.

That's true for a typical digital release that's not limited in number.

But imagine a "limited edition" of a game that's actually limited to 500 copies like a physical edition. Then copies would increase in value as they become more enticing to collectors.

Our glorious future!

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This is annoyingly possible but at the same time I don't see the appeal for the consumer right now. Will they make more money off that limited edition than simply allowing more people to buy the "complete" version? I'm not really sure, but even really small budget indie titles at least shoot for a grand, right? I don't see how selling 500 limited editions is more enticing than selling 1000 of the same editions for the same price and calling them "complete versions will all DLC" or something?

 

[Fudgepuppy]

I think it's kind of funny how physical media has become quaint and outdated in comparison to going all digital, but now we instead have people using some incredibly convoluted technology to try and replicate the feeling of owning something.

Just buy actual art or physical media you nerds.

 

[spam musubi]

They should when they entire thing NFTs are supposed to be for is proving ownership of something and there is now literally no difference between this and the other due to these being the tokenized versions. So, again, who and what is going to discern the difference? Why should anyone care about said difference? How is it going to be enforced?



Differentiating a storefront is a common tactic among different companies, yes. But that begs the question of how much more appealing that reseller market actually is for the company to impement. You are not just magically snapping your fingers and having a way to sell/buy used with a transaction here. Payment verification systems in a secondhand market alone aren't going to be cheap, and there'smore than that + upkeep of said systems.




First of all, they aren't THAT old. Two of them are less than 10 years old, and the third was accepted for publication in 2019 (meaning the study was considered relevant and verified over a long period of time cause their research was put under a ton of scrutiny and considered accepted afterwards). It assumes that if there is new research to counteract those claims, there would be new information to offset said studies, but there is not (at least not that I can find).

Second of all, the keep problem behind both remains: they are not making more money off a used sale than a new one. They are not. They have not. They continue to not. No matter how you dress it. So arguing that somehow they have changed there minds, and that creating a used market is suddenly going to make them more money "now" is any different, requires a leap of logic that just isn't there.

Physical sales are even more relevant to this discussion because there are far more tangible differences/downsides to a used physical game vs a used digital game. Yet the industry as been trying for decades to stamp that out. The differences between a "used digital" and |new digital" are non-existent by comparison.



This is annoyingly possible but at the same time I don't see the appeal for the consumer right now. Will they make more money off that limited edition than simply allowing more people to buy the "complete" version? I'm not really sure, but even really small budget indie titles at least shoot for a grand, right? I don't see how selling 500 limited editions is more enticing than selling 1000 of the same editions for the same price and calling them "complete versions will all DLC" or something?

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This right here gets to the heart of the issue. Ownership of something has value because you get to control the access to consumption of the thing. Physical goods are valuable to own because you can possess them, which means you can consume them (look at, in the case of a painting) at will, and prevent others from doing so if you want to. NFTs don't do that. They simply keep a record of ownership. The content itself is still access controlled elsewhere. So the NFT really isn't providing you the benefits of ownership, just the claim to ownership (and having to spend money for it). Everyone else can still right click save the image and look at it all they want. Any other access control mechanism that would be built on top of NFTs already exist for digital goods where controlling the access is meaningful (e.g. account systems for streaming services)

 

[Falchion]

NFT fans punching air right now.

 

[Kenai]

I think it's kind of funny how physical media has become quaint and outdated in comparison to going all digital, but now we instead have people using some incredibly convoluted technology to try and replicate the feeling of owning something.

Just buy actual art or physical media you nerds.

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They really, really realllllly want to have their cake and eat it too. All of the fun of obtaining consumer money without doing any additional work or offering anything of tangible value to the person buying. I mean, I wish it were realistic that I will buy something that matters, even cosmetic, I can use in a game I actively play, that will also work in multiple new games across different franchises and companies years and years from now. Even if it's something that's not actually limited, it might be cool to buy an alt costume you can redeem over and over again for free or whatever! But that is so goddamn nonsensical with even a surface level understanding of how businesses in general work, let alone the videogame industry and their digital products, that it's kinda sad how many people are falling for the "just trust us, look at all this PoTenTiAl" *nudge/wink* routine.

Then you remember how speculative markets work and how people on the ground floor are desperate to get people to buy in so they aren't in on the ground floor anymore, and yea...

 

[Lightning Count]

Once again, the ownership of NFT's is worthless as it is not enforceable. Also if the media in question was to be deleted the buyer is left with nothing just a worthless receipt for a piece of art that is gone.

It's a scam.

 

[Toxi]

Here's a bunch of cool NFT collections that are not just a series of images:

*Links to garbage*

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Jesus Christ who buys this ugly shit.

 

[Axon]

My hero.

 

[Ashlette]

brb buying a mickey mouse nft so i can tell disney that i own him now

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Once again, the ownership of NFT's is worthless as it is not enforceable. Also if the media in question was to be deleted the buy is left with nothing just a worthless receipt for a piece of art that is gone.

It's a scam.

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Would it be possible to associate the NFT with a "normal" contract so that there is a real legal basis for the enforcement?

 

[zoozilla]

But the dev or studio would get minimal cut of the price increase


They could do this right now if they wanted and charge a premium price, take it all in... they don't.

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Sure, but think: highly anticipated game, thousands of people want to play.

But there are only 100 copies out there. Some people will pay to experience the game, some just to hold onto it. Hypebeast culture applied to games. I know there are devs out there salivating at the idea, and honestly they could probably make a ton of money if they play it right.

 

[8byte]

I am an NFT Artist myself and also run an NFT Marketplace for sex workers and the adult industry; I'm also involved with many different other NFT projects. Personally I've built a community where sex workers are protected, kept anonymous, and are able to be paid without being put in dangerous situations. I have many small creators on my platform and a few big ones. Personally I think I am running about as ethical of a business as I can in this space, I make sure everyone is paid well and no one is harassed on my platform.

It's really annoying that there has to be some insane existential standard for me to just express that what I do is even ok, because legitimately a ton of left-leaning people seem to think this is some inherently evil technology and quote like the same lines of arguments at me over and over (just saw tulip mania again!). Honestly it makes me just really dislike the online left because I get like no reasonable conversation back on this discussion most of the time when talking to a leftist online about this stuff



I mean this technology is REALLY recent. There wasn't large amounts of people working with it until the last year or so, and really only since the summer. So far it is only mostly crypto tech bros in this space using it to make money, but it's rapidly growing as larger companies get involved and full development cycles are completed. Whether it is used for all the philosophical ways people talk about it can be used is unknown, but the base concept of an NFT is not inherently good or bad. Personally I use this space to make and sell my art that otherwise would be impossible to sell. It's actually a wonderful space for up and coming artists, or just indie artists with a small following (like me). I know quite a few artist types who's lives were changed because they went from being a literal starving artist to being a minor celebrity making real money off their own art.

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Art that would otherwise be impossible to sell?

How so?

Also, no matter how many paragraphs you write, it's all just an MLM pitch to get more low level artists to "invest" in the "platform" to drive up the value of the crypto currency.

NFT is garbage and no one using it should call themselves artists. Scam artists maybe, but definitely not artists.

 

[thomas_cale]

Sure, but think: highly anticipated game, thousands of people want to play.

But there are only 100 copies out there. Some people will pay to experience the game, some just to hold onto it. Hypebeast culture applied to games. I know there are devs out there salivating at the idea, and honestly they could probably make a ton of money if they play it right.

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What?
So you get scalpers buying all the copies and then what? You think there are more people that are gonna pay 4 digits for a game over and over and over and over again so the dev makes more money than just selling it to millions of people at 60$?

 

[Transistor]

I think it's kind of funny how physical media has become quaint and outdated in comparison to going all digital, but now we instead have people using some incredibly convoluted technology to try and replicate the feeling of owning something.

Just buy actual art or physical media you nerds.

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And all at no benefit to the companies, so they would just spend a lot of money on this useless tech for ... reasons?

 

[Lightning Count]

And all at no benefit to the companies, so they would just spend a lot of money on this useless tech for ... reasons?

Click to shrink...

 

[Laephis]

NFT fans punching air right now.

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When you're stanning for a system that gives you nothing, this seems appropriate.

 

[platocplx]

I think it's kind of funny how physical media has become quaint and outdated in comparison to going all digital, but now we instead have people using some incredibly convoluted technology to try and replicate the feeling of owning something.

Just buy actual art or physical media you nerds.

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Yep all this point too is that all we need are laws enshrining digital rights to media that are equal to physical all this other stuff is just schemes to get money.

 

[Transistor]

Yep all this point too is that all we need are laws enshrining digital rights to media that are equal to physical all this other stuff is just schemes to get money.

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Wait, are you saying you don't want what equates to a digital receipt for something you don't actually own and could cease to exist at any time?

 

[platocplx]

Wait, are you saying you don't want what equates to a digital receipt for something you don't actually own and could cease to exist at any time?

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My avatar says it all how stupid it is lmao. They ALL follow the same stupid template and literally all this does is for dumbasses to waste their time sending DMCAs for their NFTs lol.

 

[Hella]

I know you have other replies after this one and I have read them. I actually do understand what you are saying here and over the course of your posts. But I think there's an issue with your posts that is worth challenging that also summarizes some of the tension with blockchain technology in general. There is theory, of what the technology could be used for, and there is the reality, of what the technology is being used for right now.

You are correct that there are theoretical applications for NFTs to represent deeds, licenses, and rights. Some of these things might even be practical, useful, and good. However the reality of NFTs is they are exclusively being used to promote arbitrary ownership of mass produced commercial images. This is the brand of the technology. This is the image of the technology. And right now, this is also the reality of the technology. So when people react to the technology and its applications, it is not really reasonable to expect people to overlook the immediate reality of the tech in favor of thinking broadly and respect hypothetical applications instead. Because even if the technology could be used to transfer ownership of deeds, titles, and licenses, it is not being used for that. People hate what is is being used for. When that is the only thing the technology is being used for, it is not unreasonable to condemn the technology.

Everything NFTs are being used for right now, and the concept of the technology being promoted by its early adopters, undermines what you believe are its longterm practical applications. All of the talking points of NFT art collectors inspire very little confidence in the legitimacy and longevity of the tech because everything they believe is predicated on insular, manufactured concepts of ownership and authenticity. They are not concepts that people broadly agree with or support - they are, in fact, concepts people vehemently oppose. So when people go on to say how the technology can be used for other more important things as well, people have no trust in those ideas because the proof of concept has gone, and continues to go, absolutely terribly.


Your tone about how people do not understand what they're criticizing is also part of the problem here. Critics of this technology and how it is being used think its proselytes are deranged, detached, and delusional. The art is hideous. The concept of ownership is totally artificial. The attempt to impose limitations on something previously unlimited on the internet is seen as ideologically heinous. People involved with the market for these tokens are universally either deeply dishonest or exceedingly naive. People view NFT proponents so negatively because their perspective is so unrelatable and so offputting that the only possible response is hostility or hilarity. So when NFT champions say that the masses just don't get it and don't understand what they're criticizing, it just contributes further to this idea that their way of thinking is unique entirely to them and cannot be reconciled with reality.

Because the reality, right now, is that NFTs are being forced in to spaces that people find objectionable and offensive and it does a very poor job proving the hypothetical applications in the future that might be better. So it's not that people don't get it, it's that it doesn't matter because that's not the reality we live in.

I keep tweaking this to try not to come across as hostile but I'm also trying to demonstrate the intensity of people's opposition to the way the technology is used. So I will pad the post and try to clarify that I am trying to demonstrate hostility towards the concepts, not towards you personally. I hope that comes across clearly.

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The entire premise of NFTs is a shell game. NFTs inherently cannot give yo my ownership of art. NFTs are simply a record of a transaction and a link to something. Anything that isn't transactional in nature (e.g. actually viewing a piece of art, or deriving works from it) are inherently not a supported use case of NFTs because they are simply a transaction ledger. And the transaction ledger inherently cannot contain the actual bits of the art. Just a link. The art still needs to be hosted elsewhere and the link needs to be validated separately. The whole notion of "NFTs are proof of ownership" is just window dressing to get people to buy in. They are not ownership. They are just record keeping. Ownership is a meaningless concept in digital art, as anyone can copy the bits one-to-one and also have the art. Trying to map physical concepts of ownership to something digital is folly, which is why NFTs are a sham. What matters in digital art instead is access, which inherently is not facilitatable by NFTs alone. You still need a third party to read your transaction record and grant you the access.

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Just wanna say, these are both superb posts and great reads!


And since I'm here, fuck NFTs and anyone in on the scam.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Sure, but think: highly anticipated game, thousands of people want to play.

But there are only 100 copies out there. Some people will pay to experience the game, some just to hold onto it. Hypebeast culture applied to games. I know there are devs out there salivating at the idea, and honestly they could probably make a ton of money if they play it right.

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The Devs would just release a thousand copies and reap the 70$ per instead of some speculative resell % that would also come at the cost of reputation for the Devs as people think they're assholes for artificially limiting something that doesn't need to be limited

 

[Transistor]

The Devs would just release a thousand copies and reap the 70$ per instead of some speculative resell % that would also come at the cost of reputation for the Devs as people think they're assholes for artificially limiting something that doesn't need to be limited

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Not to mention devs releasing a limited amount of digital games is such a crazy thought. "WANNA PLAY OUR GAME? BETTER GET THAT NFT!"

 

[excelsiorlef]

Not to mention devs releasing a limited amount of digital games is such a crazy thought. "WANNA PLAY OUR GAME? BETTER GET THAT NFT!"

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NFTs are so cool bro they do everything worse! Get hyped

 

[Transistor]

NFTs are so cool bro they do everything worse! Get hyped

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Every day we get closer to the future of Idiocracy 😂