D&D General NFTs Are Here To Ruin Dungeons & Dragons

[Vaalingrade]

Luckily, antagonizing each other over it has kept the thread on topic!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Brace yourselves... I'm going to say something (slightly) positive about Square-Enix's foray into blockchain. At least Squeenix has a popular metaverse in which to sell cryptographically unique digital goods. It's called Final Fantasy XIV.

Of course, blockchain adds nothing to their metaverse outside of making transactions in-game slower and cost lots of real money. But at least Squeenix has a real, tangible thing to ruin!

I mean, they do, but I very much doubt Yoshi P is in favour of NFTs, because generally he's a pretty sane/sensible/sanguine guy, rather than a trend-chaser or dreamer, and if he got overrode on NFTs, that would not end well for FFXIV - a subscription-based game, note, not an F2P one.

Given that appearance is highly valued in the game, and they already sometimes draw ire for more straightforward MTX stuff, adding in NFTs would certainly bring the playerbase to "riot" levels of anger. Adding in that it would almost certainly require S-E to override Yoshi P, who honestly is a big part of why people even play FFXIV (because they feel they can trust him to keep to do what's best for the game, not merely what's popular or profitable), and it would be like "double riot" mass-quitting stuff and there's just no possible way you could sell unique NFTs fast enough or for enough money to make up for the lost subscriptions. I mean, subscriptions are $14.99, let's say $15, and FFXIV has at least 2m subscribers (but probably more as it definitely had 2m multiple years ago, before WoW semi-exploded), if you lost even 10% of that base then in a year you'd have lost 15 x 12 x 200,000 = $36m dollars. I don't think you could generate and sell $36m dollars of NFTs in a game in 5 years, probably not 10.

Especially as an NFT for a game has even less value than, say, a piece of digital art (which is already questionable), and relies on the centralized server of the game to even display it. And gosh if you think the buyers would be treated well? They would not. FFXIV actually has an enforces some rules about behaviour (WoW and most Western games technically have some but they're both more lax AND not really enforced - WoW is trying to move to a stricter and more FFXIV-like set of rules next patch but it will be meaningless unless they enforce on them), so those people could complain about the inevitably bullying/trolling but if S-E then bans people for that, they're going to create anti-NFT martyrs for goodness sake.

It's just a really losing proposition in a very profitable game, so I'd very surprised to see it implemented. But yeah they do at least have something that, theoretically, they could ruin.

 

[Charlaquin]

That's not quite how conversations work you know.

I say "EVE declares it won't use NFTs and doesn't need them"

You say "You know, EVE has a peculiar subscription system"

I say "what does that have to do with NFTs?"

You say "Hey, you brought it up"

So again, what on earth does EVE's subscription system have to do with NFTs? you brought that up.

You didn’t just say “EVE declares they won’t use NFTs,” you gave a brief description of the gameplay in support of your thesis that it doesn’t need NFTs. I elaborated on that point by explaining how its economy works, in a way which makes it function similarly to so-called “play to earn” crypto-based games, without the need of blockchain technology.

 

[nedjer]

I've some bioencrypted Jesus toast from 1982 that you're all welcome to bid on. I don't trust money so all bids should be made in Russian superyachts.

 

[Charlaquin]

Luckily, antagonizing each other over it has kept the thread on topic!

Who’s antagonizing anyone? I was just chiming in on a conversation point someone else brought up, which frankly, is not unrelated to the topic of NFTs and Crypto.

 

[Oofta]

I've some bioencrypted Jesus toast from 1982 that you're all welcome to bid on. I don't trust money so all bids should be made in Russian superyachts.

Can I just pay you in rubles? They have almost as much inherent value as NFTs!

 

[MoonSong]

Can I just pay you in rubles? They have almost as much inherent value as NFTs!

Too soon...

 

[Ancalagon]

You didn’t just say “EVE declares they won’t use NFTs,” you gave a brief description of the gameplay in support of your thesis that it doesn’t need NFTs. I elaborated on that point by explaining how its economy works, in a way which makes it function similarly to so-called “play to earn” crypto-based games, without the need of blockchain technology.

aaah - ok know I see what you meant. Thank you. And now that I see the linkage, that's quite a good point.

 

[Ancalagon]

Who’s antagonizing anyone? I was just chiming in on a conversation point someone else brought up, which frankly, is not unrelated to the topic of NFTs and Crypto.

if I must be frank, I did get a little testy, but you took the high road and explained yourself quite well. Thank you again, and well done.

 

[LongTimeLurker]

Re: “What if the character you paid money for dies?”

You get someone to cast Raise Dead on them. Obviously. It’s still a terrible business model, but I don’t think this particular critique is as incisive as people are making it out to be.

But what if raise dead is a rare spell that isn't available?