In recent months, the gaming community has taken a very clear stance against the NFT plans of major game distributors. Developers are also mostly critical of NFTs. The reasons for this lie primarily in the alleged motives of the publisher. (Also Read: Helium Network (HNT) Price Prediction – how to benefit from the IoT boom)
Whether it’s League of Legends or Fortnite , the virtual item business in video games is booming. These items often only change the appearance of weapons or your own character. The so-called micro-transactions have nevertheless risen to a serious monetization model for games that were otherwise available either for a fixed price or completely free of charge. Valve , the company behind the gaming platform Steam, is already going one step further. Behind titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 entire markets emerged where the items are sold and traded. Wouldn’t the introduction of NFTs be the next logical step here?
At least that’s what the big distributors thought. Companies like Ubisoft began experimenting with NFT platforms. GSC Game World had even bigger plans for its much-anticipated shooter title, Stalker 2 . Because the coupling of game objects to NFTs would have even paved the way for the game into the metaverse.
In both cases, the gaming community went on the barricades. They flooded an announcement trailer for Ubisoft’s “Quartz” platform with dislikes and also publicly announced their displeasure with Stalker 2 . The consequence: Ubisoft was surprised by the negative headlines, but told CT Team that they would continue with the support of a “strong but rather quiet community”. Meanwhile, GSC Game World rowed back. On Twitter , the company announced an end to all NFT plans for Stalker 2 .
But where does the displeasure of the community come from? And how do game developers feel about the plans of their distribution companies?
Developer studios don’t think much of NFTs
As far as the latter question is concerned, a new survey provides quite clear results. In the run-up to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, the organizers conducted a survey among 2,700 developers. NFTs and paying with cryptocurrencies were also on the questionnaire.
Both points revealed a persistent rejection. This was 70 percent for the integration of NFTs and 72 percent for crypto payments. Only 28 percent said they were at least slightly interested in NFT offerings in their video games. For crypto payments, the figure was 27 percent. The authors of the study nevertheless note an increase in interest here.
The gaming news portal Kotaku also published some statements that were collected anonymously in the course of the survey. When it comes to NFTs, one statement is particularly interesting:
You will drive a wedge into the heart of this industry. It’s going to become very clear what people’s motivations are, and it’s not going to be pretty.
The question raised here about the motivations behind the NFT implementation seems crucial to the entire debate. It brings us back to the gaming community.
Gamers have never been fans of micro-transactions
The New York Times spoke to some community members as part of their research on the topic. Your statements paint a clear picture. Because gamers’ criticism of NFTs is not primarily based on a lack of understanding of the technology. For most, it is more about the fact that the introduction of NFTs is not associated with any game-changing innovations. The only priority would be to maximize profit. A player who took part in the online protest against Stalker 2 ‘s NFT plans was quoted by the newspaper as saying:
The studio abused its popularity. It’s so obvious that they’re out for profit instead of just making a nice game.
However, according to the Times , this criticism is not a new phenomenon. Because the increasing monetization of additional content and the triumph of micro-transactions has been a thorn in the side of the gaming community for some time. In the NFT integration, they therefore recognize the immediate continuation of this trend.
In the last 10 years we’ve seen all kinds of plans and we’re tired of
said another interviewed gamer. If the game distributors still want to make their NFT plans palatable to the community, they will probably have to take a different approach than before.
