Why microtransactions, IAPs and LootBoxes are here to stay thread

[wakka]

Apologies for my arrogant tone. But I'm really not hearing a sense of a tangible objection. I was replying to NI (it landed under yours). If it's a scam, explain - I know you're saying you don't think it is. The energy issue isn't the real thing because, in this case, it would be no less energy efficient than normal DLC (which is hardly without impact, same as everything we do on computers including writing right here).

Is DLC exploitative? It absolutely can be. Is this worse? If so, how?

Appreciate your note re arrogant tone and I'm sure it wasn't intentional.

Is this worse than loot boxes? I mean it's subjective obviously, but, nah probably about the same, on balance. Both systems of getting people to unload large (as in, much greater cost than the cost of a game) amounts of cash on items, through scarcity.

The scarcity in this case isn't an NFT thing. The good players in FIFA Ultimate Team are rare, and they're not NFTs (yet). In that case the scheme was loot boxes and has evolved into a clever 'limited availability' model - where you can see the next 3 players you'd get if you bought in, but they're only available for a short time. If you buy them, you'll be shown another three. A Machiavellian repackaging of the same concept.

This NFT scheme is just another example of these systems. Ubisoft or EA can't charge £500 for a character in a game, not directly, because people would kick off (which is why they use loot box or loot box adjacent style schemes to achieve the same effect). With NFTs, the market decides, and they scrape a commission - so £500 can be charged for a character, and, welp, blame doesn't land at the publisher's door, since that's just the market deciding.

Is that good for gamers, and for games? Why would we want that?

[Dogg Thang]

A Machiavellian repackaging of the same concept.

This NFT scheme is just another example of these systems. Ubisoft or EA can't charge £500 for a character in a game, not directly, because people would kick off (which is why they use loot box or loot box adjacent style schemes to achieve the same effect). With NFTs, the market decides, and they scrape a commission - so £500 can be charged for a character, and, welp, blame doesn't land at the publisher's door, since that's just the market deciding.

Yep, I would agree with this. But it's important to note that this is very new and we're seeing a lot of nonsense that just won't exist once it settles. Even in that example, someone might be able to sell on a rare player for £500 and the games company gets a cut. That wasn't possible before. But mostly when things settle, what that would really amount to is people buying an in-game item for £3 and maybe selling it on in six months for £1. That's far more likely the reality. And I don't see that as being worse than buying that in-game item for £3 and then that's it - you don't own it and don't have that option to sell on.

[wakka]

I do see where you're coming from on that. At least customers have the opportunity to recoup some money, rather than just hurling it directly into the void as they currently do on these systems. But it hardly seems like we have gained much. It's taken years for loot boxes to start being pushed out of games, and here they are with something else to replace it that I feel confers very little net benefit on the games buying public. If we weren't coming from a bunch of existing exploitative systems, it would hardly seem an improvement - and even as we are, it seems little enough of one.

It will be interesting to see what happens with it, and how it shakes out, I'll say that.

[Asura]

You should have waded in

thanks, I appreciate that. I just don't want this to be part of an otherwise stressful day

[Dogg Thang]

If we weren't coming from a bunch of existing exploitative systems, it would hardly seem an improvement.

Yep, I agree with this too. I'm not going to make a case that this NFT thing is great. At its core, I'm with the point Asura was going to make (and I hope it's okay to reference that even though it was withdrawn) - bringing real world limits into a digital world is not something I agree with when they don't need to exist. But yes, given the systems we have right now, for better or worse, in this particular application I see at least a slight opening up of personal options here when you buy an in-game object. But I need to compare it to the poor existing systems to see that positive. If we were building this from scratch, I would not be advocating for this.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Great, another thing for me to avoid in gaming. Its becoming a real obstacle course.

[Neon Ignition]

If you buy a DLC item currently you're paying say £3 and then that's it, money gone and you don't 'own' it and can't resell it etc. But likewise if you buy it as a NFT it's an effective lie that you own it as it's still tied to the digital license of the game title you bought and use it through that you don't own. Likewise it may carry some resale value meaning what Ubisoft has effectively created is a second hand market for digital items but that is of less value for them than selling those items directly themselves unless artificially inflated value is introduced to items to generate demand. This very easily strays into the same kinds of troubling areas that frankly games shouldn't be leaning kids into.

Don't get me wrong, I see this as a completely different thing compared to someone making digital art and them retaining ownership, selling it on etc. Let's be honest, Ubisoft is not going to knocking out millions of distinct and valuable NFTs for this thing.

Interestingly I've already read that those who own one will be in breach of streaming or YouTube rules if it appears in their video so they can't even show off and enjoy the item.

Interestingly too, say I buy a Ubisoft NFT horse armour, they say I own it and can sell it via a third party. How exactly? It's not a file, a sale system for a single item within a gaming account tied to a console platform tied to software doesn't have the systems required to do that and it infers that Ubisoft won't be providing it themselves.

Ubisofts T&C's for their new NFT's even includes a ToS section that states that the 'owner' of the NFT cannot use it as an opportunity to gain economic benefit or profit meaning they remain worthless. In reality you might be able to maybe, possible get someone in game (if you can sell them at all) to buy three DLC items to get around buying a replacement fourth one day but that's about it.

[Asura]

Great, another thing for me to avoid in gaming. Its becoming a real obstacle course.

Yeah, I mean what is this? Anime? Music? Hollywood? Politics? Truthfully it really is a minefield.

[Dogg Thang]

[MENTION=345]Neon Ignition[/MENTION] That last point is interesting. Is that to weed out the speculators, I wonder? Is it policeable?

As for selling via a third party, that’s easy but tied into the issue you bring up right at the start. An NFT is essentially like a digital deed. If you buy a house, someone doesn’t hand you the house. You get a legal contract that says you own it. An NFT works the same way in that it essentially points to a file but it’s a deed of ownership and it exists outside of the company’s own servers. That’s the whole point - it is decentralised. So you can sell it, transfer it or whatever totally outside of the original infrastructure. But your first point is bang on in the sense that, if the file it points to is centralised like any other DLC, the company could pull it or at some point it will vanish. It’s like you still have the deed to your house but your house blew away. And that has to be a consideration here. Most NFT files up to now are stored on decentralised systems for exactly that reason - so they aren’t dependent on any one service still being there in a decade. But I can’t see a lot of games companies doing that.

[wakka]

Yeah, that is an issue. And to go beyond the point of where that file, the actual gubbins, the actual STUFF, is stored, there's also the consideration of what that stuff can be used for and how that impacts its value.

I.e. if a new version of a game comes out and gimps that particular NFT item, or it's unusable because the next season roster has come out on a sports game and that player is injured or retired or whatever, presumably the value is impacted.

Or if it's a purely cosmetic item, they could issue more, similar versions of that item, thus flooding the market and impacting that value. Totally theoretical, but they could let an item get super rare and desirable, hundreds of quid on the open market, then release a bunch more of similar ones, in order capitalise on the demand (perhaps bringing down the value of that original desirable cosmetic collectible in the first place).

So the power remains very much in the hands of the publisher, both in terms of the storage of the actual item (which is more a long term issue as I doubt they'd turn off the servers in too short a time frame), and in terms of its utility and the value it derives from that utility (which is more a short term issue as re-balancing updates and game changes or even full scale sequels are issued all the time).

EDIT: And just to add, I really don't get the thing about stopping resale of the NFTs. If you can't resell them there is literally no point since they might as well just store them on a regular ol' database on their servers like they do any other item. But maybe there is more to learn about that because it seems nuts, likewise the YouTube thing.

[Asura]

I.e. if a new version of a game comes out and gimps that particular NFT item, or it's unusable because the next season roster has come out on a sports game and that player is injured or retired or whatever, presumably the value is impacted.

Yeah, this is something I come back to whenever this topic comes up.

The example I've used in the past is that years ago, there was a Warcraft collectible card game. It was a moderate success by the manner of these things. Blizzard withdrew the license and effectively sunset the game when they started to get into gear with development on Hearthstone.

The retirement of the game didn't cause it to cease to exist; i.e. Blizzard can't command your cards to self-destruct if you happen to have any. If you have some decks and know another player, you can still play.

You effectively own non-fungible cards; like there might be many original copies of the Sylvanas Windrunner card but there were only so many printed. They're all distinct, individual cards which if you had a microscope, you could tell apart.

So you have a unique card from a now-retired game, which Blizzard can't take away from you.

But at the same time, you can't rock up to a Magic: the Gathering tournament with it. I mean, you could, but you wouldn't achieve much!

Blizzard themselves have never allowed you to use the cards in another game. They could, perhaps, offer a rebate for the cards (maybe if you trade them in for a discount on Hearthstone gems) but this is kinda by-the-by, because for digital games, they could do that anyway, as they already have a database of every product that has been sold.

You could, of course, sell your cards on eBay, but realistically, what are they worth? This is where the Warcraft example breaks down a bit because some of the cards are worth a perplexingly large amount of money, but Warcraft is still a top-tier gaming franchise. I doubt the cards for the obscure 90s Battletech Trading Card Game are worth anything today. And when many more games exist like this, what will they be worth?

Or put simply, when Fortnite eventually closes down, what will a Fortnite skin be worth, even if you can sell it to me?

[Neon Ignition]

They still seem to be sifting through the details but it sounds like everything remains firmly within Ubisofts servers so if so then the ownership aspect is in effect a lie and your item very much goes down with the game server when Ubisoft decides.

[Dogg Thang]

when Fortnite eventually closes down, what will a Fortnite skin be worth, even if you can sell it to me?

Precisely zero. Unless somehow it has been made cross-compatible with something else, which is unlikely in most cases but something I suspect we'll see it sometimes, especially in the case of licensed or promotional items. That happens in the NFT space already but it would require license holders and game companies playing nice with each other. For example, let's say Star Wars licenses a promotional Fortnite skin, because ownership is independent of Fortnite's servers, they could license use of that same skin or similar in some other game. Those items are usually essentially advertising and often come from marketing budgets and it's in their interests to do that with certain items. But I don't think for a second that it will become normal or standard.

[Neon Ignition]

I might be wrong but I think all Ubisoft has done is assign items serial codes to differentiate them too.

It kind of brings to mind an image of Del Boy opening a truck full of rubber ducks and trying to market each one as a unique item because each has a nick in it in a different place from transport.

Difference is, you could keep the duck

[Asura]

They still seem to be sifting through the details but it sounds like everything remains firmly within Ubisofts servers so if so then the ownership aspect is in effect a lie and your item very much goes down with the game server when Ubisoft decides.

To use an analogy with this, that's almost like Blizzard are selling you a key for a safe-deposit box at their HQ. If they ever want to get rid of the boxes and their contents, they can, and you would lose them. But you still have the key