I think any developer that implements this would be in between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand it becomes impossible to have a consistent aesthetic or theme if you liberally allow people to bring their own assets, and on the other if you allow it but somehow map resources into your aesthetic the owners will almost certainly feel ripped off.

As a player I think I would find it less than desirable to be playing Darkest Dungeon and view Halo content next to cartoon Fallguys. The NFT owner probably wants more than their NFT transformed into bytes and used as a random seed to determine the grain on their wooden shield. They almost certainly want a direct map to their resource.

Maybe I'm out of touch these days but I don't see how Web3 in this scenario is also better than just a standardized API schema that's shared across different games or platforms.

The developer still needs to implement how this skin or texture is applied in their specific game, so there's still net additional work per skin or texture. You don't just get it for free as soon as someone else implements it in one game.

The Web3 part of this would be that no company needs to be responsible for the database that says that a player is in possession of a particular item. The fact that limited cooperation between companies is needed is what could allow the adoption of standardized schemas.

I'd be curious if even that would be so simple. There could be competing blockchains or types of NFTs. You might also get into the situation where instead of every company building the software to verify ownership they just pay specialized companies.In that situation Web3 technology isn't really all that different than a company building a virtual shop API. A company like Valve could probably do this better than Opensea could and without all the extra Web3 technology.

> I question how desirable that even is.

I agree, and would go even further - is this even desirable to the creators of the game? Sounds a lot like shooting themselves into the foot. They profit off having closed ecosystems and kids having to buy skins instead of already owning them from somewhere else

This is exactly why game makers will never do this. They make money on churn. Put out a new game, users must buy all new skins. If you allow porting of skins you drastically reduce your profit. It’s just a stupid business decision. Companies like walled gardens for a reason.

What if importing skins incurs a fee?

Why not let me just import any random skin for a fee? If I'm making money on the import fees, why would I limit myself to just skins that a user has already previously purchased somewhere else?

If I'm running Fortnite, I could be convinced that there's a value in allowing Fornite skins/dances/etc. in other games. The much harder sell is that I should allow _unrestricted_ use in other games, rather than making deals with other developers to license my content, as companies already do. An even harder sell is that I should also allow unrestricted use of skins/etc. from other games. I have a strong incentive to prevent that in the same way a movie theater has a strong incentive to keep people from bringing their own snacks.

Hell, what about skins/etc that already have a licensing agreement? If I buy a Star Wars skin for Fortnite, there’s a bunch of deals Epic’s made with Disney to be allowed to have Darth Vader and friends in their game, as well as a bunch of back-and-forth until Disney’s licensing department has approved of the model and every possible action it can be made to take. If that skin is an NFT that I can theoretically take to Street Fighter, then suddenly Capcom has Darth Vader in there without any deal with Disney, quite possibly doing things the licensing department would never approve of.

(This is of course assuming some theoretical process where the NFT has a bunch of data attached that makes it Just Work, instead of it requiring Capcom to sink a bunch of development time into making assets for characters that can only be unlocked by having paid money to another company entirely.)

Why would other games want to allow Fortnite skins in their game? If their players are willing to spend money on skins wouldn't they be better off just selling skins?

Nevermind the technical and practical concerns. What does it even mean to apply a Fortnite skin to a battleship or a racecar?

Exactly. The incentives are all off here, and it doesn't create any mutually beneficial relationships. The participants who stand to benefit in this hypothetical future are companies making shovelware games who would love to lean on availability of other games' assets, companies selling knockoff "skin packs", etc.

> I question how desirable that even is

I am with you, but I am a bit more cynical after watching my 6-10 year old nephews get into gaming. All they care about are the skins, it's insane to me but they really like it. Knowing that makes me dislike this angle more because I feel like their entire market vertical will be 6-10 years olds with their parents money. Not to mention the whole, creating addicts out of kids in the name of digital consumerism.

But specifically paying a premium for skins that somehow transfer from game to game? This business model has some serious problems if the skins don't cost much more than the ones currently offered in one game.