Re:Steam bans all blockchain and NFT games on its platform
by vkou on Friday October 15, 2021 @03:42PM
(#28882197)
There's no point to doing any of this when the game could just keep track of this in a traditional database.
The only benefit is having a 'public' API for ownership of an item that other, third-party games could use, but why, as a game developer, would you possibly give any rando third-party competitor full access to this information? It makes sense if you are curating a community of fan-made tooling that ends up promoting your game, but it makes zero sense to give competitors access to it.
Imagine a Hearthstone-clone that pitches it as: "Join our game! You have every card that you own in Hearthstone! And a <gimmick>."
Do you think it would be in Blizzard's interest for that clone to exist? Do you think it would be in Blizzard's interest to go out of its way to turn its player's cards into NFTs, so that some unlicensed Martian knock-off goes ahead and makes that pitch?
It is in Blizzard's interest to share this information with someone that they have a partnership with (or with another game that they've developed), but that problem can be solved by... An API. With revocable keys.
The only benefit is having a 'public' API for ownership of an item that other, third-party games could use, but why, as a game developer, would you possibly give any rando third-party competitor full access to this information? It makes sense if you are curating a community of fan-made tooling that ends up promoting your game, but it makes zero sense to give competitors access to it.
Imagine a Hearthstone-clone that pitches it as: "Join our game! You have every card that you own in Hearthstone! And a <gimmick>."
Do you think it would be in Blizzard's interest for that clone to exist? Do you think it would be in Blizzard's interest to go out of its way to turn its player's cards into NFTs, so that some unlicensed Martian knock-off goes ahead and makes that pitch?
It is in Blizzard's interest to share this information with someone that they have a partnership with (or with another game that they've developed), but that problem can be solved by... An API. With revocable keys.