NFTs are coming to games, but are they already here?
The industry is considering them, but gaming has had rare digital goods for a while, writes Shaun Prescott
In the ever-starkly polarised world of social media, NFTs – or non-fungible tokens – are either a brilliant way to apply value to digital goods with blockchain tech, or a scam-laden scourge that will destroy the world. It’s still early days, but the truth seems somewhere in-between: the concept isn’t inherently bad, though its reliance on energyintensive cryptocurrency is a perfectly legitimate cause for concern.
Suffice it to say that NFTs are fairly controversial, but they cannot be ignored. NFTs have sold for millions of dollars, with digital artist Beeple (their real name is unknown) selling a work at auction for a mindblowing US$69 million. But chances are you’ve heard about all this lunacy, which over the course of 2021 has morphed from a seemingly radical and underground concept into something that – inevitably – the gaming industry wants to get involved with.
The days of blockbustervendoring publishers simply releasing a nine-hour game and moving onto the next one are very quickly dying: nowadays it’s all about engagement, attracting daily log-ins, and of course, selling in-game items. Electronic Arts knows this: just look at FIFA and Apex Legends. So it’s no surprise that EA CEO Andrew Wilson was among the first gaming industry executives to unambiguously embrace the prospect of NFT integration.
“I think that in the context of the games we create and the live services that we offer, collectible digital content is going to play a meaningful part in our future,” Wilson said on the topic of NFTs and “play-toearn” formats. “So, it’s still early to tell, but I think we’re in a really good position, and we should expect us to kind of think more innovatively and creatively about that on a go-forward basis.” Meanwhile, horror game Dead By Daylight has already started licensing its in-game models to NFT creators.
It’s not all sunshine and daisies though: Valve has banned all NFT and cryptocurrency based games from Steam, probably because it’s too much of a hassle to police them (of course, arch-contrarian Tim Sweeney, Epic Games CEO, announced his storefront would welcome these games after Valve’s decision). Ever-rational Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says that he believes in collectible digital goods, but doesn’t believe NFTs are necessarily the answer. “Blockchain authorisation, which is what an NFT really is, is one way – not the only way – to authenticate the fact something is singular, is rare.” He’s right too: Counter-Strike didn’t need the blockchain to generate digital weapon skins that can sell for thousands of dollars on auction.
But it’s probably a matter of not if, but when, blockchaindriven digital commodities start appearing as rewards or premium purchasable in mainstream games – even if they’re given a different, more palatable name than the polarising “NFT”. Their environmental impact dovetails with the impact already borne of Ethereum-mining emissions, so that point of criticism must also take issue with cryptocurrency as a whole. If “proof of work” (aka, mining) is left behind for the “proof of stake” model (ie, reserving cryptocurrency tokens in order to prove a stake) there is no reason why NFTs as a concept can’t be adopted. Ethereum plans to move to a PoS model in 2022.
So if NFTs ever lose their environment-destroying stigma (which is totally possible) they’ll basically become a blockchainoperated alternative to a digital goods market that has already existed in the gaming industry for years. Whatever the case, if you believe an NFT-driven collectible economy is going to ruin games, I’ve got news for you: you’re already living in it by another name.
It’s not all sunshine and daisies though: Valve has banned all NFT and cryptocurrency based games from Steam, probably because it’s too much of a hassle to police them.