Crypto is easy to avoid "for now".

The endgame for crypto is tokenizing everything in some peoples eyes.

Video game skins become NFTs that you now "own" instead of just being in-game. So you can transfer them around, sell them on composable markets etc.

Assuming things actually get worked out you could see a merging of the digital and physical worlds assets.

If this a good thing, or will even happen who knows.

> Video game skins become NFTs that you now "own" instead of just being in-game.

This use case actually doesn't make sense if you think about it. Items only make sense in the context of a game, and you trust the game makers to honor it. At that point, there's no incentive for them to actually allow you to port in/port out items.

Think about it this way: what good is the BFG from Unreal Tournament in Cooking Mama?

Even in related games, guns from Battlefield 2042 in say COD Vanguard?

Sounds pretty shit.

A more interesting example would be From software issuing a “moonlight sword” nft (maybe for an achievement like 100% elden ring) and various indie devs creating souls-like games choosing to honor it within their game.

I would like to be polite to you here, but it's going to be hard, because this take is wrong at every single level, and it feels like you haven't tried any sort of critical thinking whatsoever:

1) NFTs are the most expensive, least efficient way to implement the least interesting part of this technology. Even if you accept the dubious premise that they do even that job well.

2) You have explicitly described a system in which every single agreement between devs would require special testing. Is the moonlight sword balanced in the other game? Don't I still have to describe literally every aspecet of the moonlight sword other than who owns it in the second game?

3) Skins and other microtransactions are per game, by an absolute law of their design. That is the point. A game developer has no interest in honoring a microtransaction that I can prove that I paid some other game developer for. I would want my cut.

4) The condition upon which you have proposed that people can acquire the moonlight sword is... for beating Elden Ring? So it's a sign of status. Except that it's a sign of status that I can sell, so it's actually just a signal of wealth or status, maybe? Maybe I can't sell it. But wait, why did I make it an NFT then. So I must be able to sell it, but then it is presumed to have a dollar value, so why wouldn't Fromsoft sell it in the first place. Sounds a lot like a regular microtransaction.

Which brings me to my final point.

5) The market for microtransactions is already very optimized. Videogames are already very good at extracting every penny that people are willing to pay for bullshit cosmetics and play to win garbage. You can't even make money hucking this shit.

Also one final point, if 10 mutually independent devs share an NFT blockchain so the moonlight sword can be transferred between games... what stops me from minting my own moonlight sword? Or super moonlight sword? Or unauthorized micky mouse hats?

But again, not only is that trustful (after all, the "moonlight sword" name, image, etc, are subject to copyright and trademark) if From decides to allow that they can just open an API.

“Is thing in wallet” strikes me as much easier to implement then n^2 api integrations across companies. It’d be easier to do the api method via drm platforms like steam at the cost of lock-in to those platforms; cross pc/console access to any item would be far from guaranteed. Outsourcing all of that logic to a centralized (ex google blockchain) or decentralized blockchain and wallet just seems like a more scalable (num of actors not tps) approach with a low barrier for entry for each individual actor.

Your comment about “trust” has little to do with the technology. It’s a cross between legal gray areas (which would need to be solved/accepted if this becomes the norm) and dogma surrounding web3. I tend to agree that this isn’t likely to happen unless from software essentially abandoned their ip for some reason. But if that happened, it’d be a cool way for the legacy to live in future games in a way that pays homage to the original creators. It’s a use case that makes much more sense then just copying a random gun from one game to another because there are years of history in the item.

> Outsourcing all of that logic to a centralized (ex google blockchain) or decentralized blockchain and wallet just seems like a more scalable (num of actors not tps) approach with a low barrier for entry for each individual actor.

I do think for this to make sense you'd have to have, you know, one blockchain everyone used otherwise you still have the "10 app stores" problem, no?

if the game itself runs via a decentralized computational model then there’s no need to appeal to authority to honor the ownership. The game itself, just like the skin, would exist on the p2p network.

We are of course very far from that happening, or knowing if it can happen, but it’s still a possibility to consider

You have to make a game that supports every item. There's no such thing as a "generic" game. Games have balance - hours are spent tweaking relative attributes of items to ensure the game is, you know, fun. For instance, what's to stop me from making an NFT nuclear launcher item on my own, then porting it in and wiping out everyone else's stuff?

MINE + CRAFT

The fact that people keep trotting out this idea about the future potential of NFT gaming is evidence that people know basically nothing about making video games or the assets that go into them. And neither do the founders of any NFT projects with the rate at which they crash and burn if they aren't outright scams.

Crypto is held back by its own stupidity & inefficiency - the system self-regulates well enough.

The only thing a blockchain is good for is assets that fully live on the blockchain for which the source of truth is the blockchain itself - like cryptocurrencies.

Putting NFTs, video game/metaverse avatars, real-world assets, etc will never work; it's at best a very inconvenient, inefficient database replacement, and at worst a scam.

This is something few have realized. Crypto guarantees can only ever extend to things that are wholly represented on-chain, and that's basically just cryptocurrencies. As soon as the chain reflects the real world it's at the mercy of the correct data being entered, or reality not changing around it.

And this means pure cryptocurrencies, backed stablecoins do not offer any of the crypto guarantees either since they are representations of assets held in trust that can be seized.

For a system to be trustless, decentralized and permissionless it must be entirely trustless, permissionless and decentralized. It's not a gradient, it's a step function. Once anything creeps in, all guarantees are void.

Interesting take on this. Something to think about.

It's certainly better than paying companies for "licenses" we don't actually own or digital goods that amount to nothing but bits in their database. With these digital content NFTs, at least we get a real market.

I'm not sure whether these things will actually get integrated into video games or how well it's gonna work. It will certainly be interesting to watch this develop.

>Crypto is fairly easy to avoid as an individual

It's probably contributing more to inflation than people believe. Both in the demand for resources and in terms of redistribution of wealth. Although probably not as much as the new work-from-home paradigm.

Couldnt be the thousands of dollars handed out, making markets discount the dollar, could it?

Yes, that too. The printing has to catch up with them eventually.

> try to buy a consumer-grade TV that doesn't show ads or spy on you

I haven't bought a consumer TV since... well, actually, I just haven't ever actually bought one except second-hand non-smart TVs a decade ago. Is it literally that bad? i.e. does everything show ads? Can you root these machines and/or install non-ad-based apps instead?

Any consumer-grade "smart" product (whether TV or home automation) now phones home (even though it can run entirely locally on the LAN), requires an account and collects data and the (often mandatory) mobile app will typically include various advertising malware such as the Facebook SDK, analytics, etc that spy on you.

The primary objective is "growth and engagement" aka an ad delivery mechanism (or data collection mechanism for more ads down the line). The functionality of the product (if any) is merely a necessary evil (from the manufacturer's point of view) to convince the mark to buy & "engage" with the device. If they could get people to "engage" with it without any functionality they'd definitely do that instead.

Do what I do and simply disable internet access to the TV. Netflix and whatnot gets ran on my PS5, which mainly advertises their PSN store, so it's less intrusive.

The only good panels now are also "smart" tvs with something like a roku or samsung spyware built in in an unavoidable way. You can't simply change inputs to avoid it because the whole OS you're changing inputs within is the smart TV's OS.

looks like there might be an emerging market for 60-inch computer monitors

You can absolutely find these, usually offered as commercial products, e.g. for menus, or billboards in airports, etc.

Buddy of mine used to work in a kabab shop before finishing his IT degree and helped out there off and on. He ordered an installed some 48" monitors (simple HD TVs) and then ordered a few for himself. I think they could 2 inputs max, but that's fine for most purposes.

Sadly, I suspect adtech is already working to target them too. What better way to fight adblockers?

Ads no longer work online, period. The ad industry is just 10 years behind acknowledging it. Most of what people pay for is just paying for the organic traffic you'd normally get with no ads so they don't give it to someone else. It's more of a protection racket than it is a source of genuine new customers.

I have rather different experience. Most people either don't care or don't know how to. Unless you're tech savvy you're watching ads. And if you're on mobile you're watching them anyway in many cases.

People ignore ads either way these days, I mean

Many free CI services have stopped being a thing because people exploited the free compute for crypto mining. That’s directly impacted a lot of developers at least.

> Crypto is fairly easy to avoid as an individual

Web3.0 folks are trying their best to change this.

> may sell you out.

Even HR departments. Got a new job and am completely spammed constantly at my brand new work email address.

> the only thing I can think of that crypto has "contaminated" is GPU prices.

And storage. See Proof of Space and Chia.