Sega Could Reverse Decision To Sell NFTs Following Fan Backlash

I really don't know how NFTs can be viewed as anything other than "simply money-making". I'm happy to be convinced otherwise, but I'm also yet to meet someone who thinks they are a good idea, other than the sellers.

Ya they say they care, but we all know they couldn't give a crap as long as they get paid, money talks.

"Slightly" controversial statement from SE's president? 🤔

Yay! More unneccesary discussion about NFTs by mostly people who have no clue what an NFT actually is.

NFTs do absolutely nothing that can't already be achieved by video games today. It's purely a capitalist move for people who want to scam other people.

Getting ready for the NFT bros who want to cry "lol people don't know what NFTs really are" and then proceed not to explain why they're apparently good themselves because big surprise, there are no good points to them.

I don't know one normal person who are up for NFTs.
To me it just seems a massive scam and also money laundering as you "buy" the NFT it will not be in a bank account and therefore do not need to pay tax on it at the end of the day.
I work in the financial sector and hate all these types of tax evasion (even though they are not classed as tax evasion) but without it I wouldn't have a job, so catch 22 really

I still don't fully understand what NFTs are and how they relate to crypto, which itself is something I don't fully grasp either. I feel like an old man who doesn't get the hip, new lingo kids these days are using 😂

For the sake of humanity and future gaming, just remove the NFT idea forever.

NFTs are stupid. Sooner folks realize that, sooner we can put them in our past

"We need to carefully assess many things"
No, you do not. You just scrap your plans, tell your suits to suck it and tell your fans to buy your games to prove a point.

@TheBigK NFT are pretty much like purchase receipts.
Imagine this:
You go to you electronics store of your choice.
You pick a brand new and totally unique, one of a kind TV and buy it.
You get the receipt that clearly says that you are the sole owner of this TV.

Meanwhile, countless others walk by you with that very same TV under their arms.

It's why it has become a meme to "right click + save" these NFT images. Because it's your receipt that actually one-of-a-kind and not the item itself, pretty much voiding any real value.

Why is it that nonsense like NFTs and the metaverse goes from buzzwords that no one had heard of a year ago to having to be incorporated into absolutely everything? One's a scam to part rich and stupid people from their money, one's Facebook's "hey, look over there!" operation following Frances Haugen's disclosures.

Has anyone ever actually said "Man, I'd really like to be the exclusive owner of some video game item and have a really energy and carbon intensive way of proving it?"

Anyone? clock ticks loudly

Can someone explain to me what is the negative impact of video game publishers introducing their NFTs?
How does it affect the actual games?
All I see is complaining from people that they are all money-grabbers, yet I dont see anyone here interested in making a NFT purchase. So, how does it affect us, gamers, exactly?
I am not trying to act as a smart ass here, I am really asking how does this affect both games and gamers?
My knowledge of NFTs is minimal, so if someone could give me an explanation, I would greatly appreciate it

@Bunkerneath that just reminded me of how nft were initially procured pitched as "allowing digital artists to take part in the fine art market as well" while forgetting to state the fine art market is itself what it is because it is mostly all about money laundering, scams and speculation that has nothing to do with the art itself.

@Ludovsky So basically NFTs were invented to create more and easier ways to launder money.

@MatoFilipovic It affects games the same way season passes, battle passes, micro transactions etc affected it.
NFT are a prime candidate to exploit FOMO (fear of missing out) and shift things like, say, cosmetics further and further away from the actual gaming experience.

Their wording is suspicious.

@MatoFilipovic Typically? So far it's just been implemented as another form of microtransaction, but even more expensive since now there's a backend cost to it thanks to the blockchain.

Also, the companies that have done it so far have kept control of the ledger, making it literally no different than if they used a private database to sell the items, other than energy cost.

EDIT: The theoretical plus is that you can resell the items... But Steams been doing that for years with their cards without having Blockchain involved. And we all know how much those items go for. Thanks to the necessity of a purchase fee on every transaction with blockchain, you won't be making anything doing so.

play 2 earn is such a nice ***** term . when games become work . this means games that are balanced for this grind with systems made for it and the masses are going to buy it like they buy the mobile free 2 play crap

@noobish_hat I think sneaking in the “and complying with Japanese regulations” is the REAL reason

@MatoFilipovic sure! There are a couple different things:

1. Development is zero sum - all time they spend on this is something they cannot put development hours towards something that DOES interest us

2. The end goal of Non-Fungible Tokens is unbreakable and irreversible DRM

3. The consequences of the electronic transactions are devastating from an energy perspective. Here’s a fun description of it:

imagine if you went up to the mona lisa and you were like “i’d like to own this” and someone nearby went “give me 65 million dollars and i’ll burn down an unspecified amount of the amazon rainforest in order to give you this receipt of purchase” so you paid them and they went “here’s your receipt, thank you for your purchase” and went to an unmarked supply closet in the back of the museum and posted a handmade label inside it behind the brooms that said “mona lisa currently owned by jacobgalapagos” so if anyone wants to know who owns it they’d have to find this specific closet in this specific hallway and look behind the correct brooms. and you went “can i take the mona lisa home now?” and they went “oh god no are you stupid? you only bought the receipt that says you own it, you didn’t actually buy the mona lisa itself, you can’t take the real mona lisa you idiot. you CAN take this though.” and gave you the replica print in a cardboard tube that’s sold in the gift shop. also the person selling you the receipt of purchase has at no point in time ever owned the mona lisa.

It is crazy that as soon as one company started selling NFTs all the other big companies have jumped on the bandwagon, it makes me think there were plans to offer them all along and they were just waiting for someone to be the first one to offer them, probably because they were aware of the backlash there could be.

The fact that they are concerned about what they can get away with under Japanese regulations should be a clear sounding bell warning them that what they are doing is wrong.

I have a terrible feeling video gaming is going to become a heavily regulated industry and eventually merge with that other gaming industry, gambling. Since the rise of mobile and mtx whales, this stuff has become more built into the industry.

Starting this year while watching holiday TV programming I've noticed 10-15% of most TV advertising is now for mobile-based online casinos, advertising the variety of games available. Actual casino games. I have never seen this before. So we're now to the point (and with heavy mainstream marketing behind it) that the actual casinos are moving into the mobile gaming space as major players with actual gambling. While the video games industry moves ever closer to gambling-like monetization. It's really only a matter of time until video games and gambling wholly merge. The writing maybe should have been on the wall when Sega and Konami were making most of their money from gambling machines. Heck, maybe the writing should have been on the wall in the 80's when the dominant arcade chain was owned by one of the major alcohol & casino mfr/chains.

I would prefer a system where we earn stickers to send through a console's messaging application based on unlocking achievements. PS messaging has stickers, you get an image for each trophy, just fuse these two ideas together, but god's sake, don't charge people for the images!

With all of this nonsense with NFTs going on, I like to remind people that there are many older games they missed and many games of various types that they already played which will probably be just as fun to go back to and play again. Some games may even feel new again if enough time has passed. Plus there are indie games that are truly worth supporting.

@Einherjar Wait, so, you will have to buy NFTs to access things like additional content in the game? I thought NFTs are just a code for a digital picture. I don't really get the feeling of missing out if NFT is, in fact, a code for a digital picture... or am I missing something?

@link3710 Form of microtransaction? How? I thought microtransactions are used for buying additional content and passes for games, not to gain a code for a picture.

@GannonBanned I'm sure they have enough men to handle both the development of video games and NFT side of the job. I like the way you used the Mona Lisa example, and it is how I understood what NFT is about, but I still don't see how it affect actual video games.

@Yorumi So NFT is a form of microtransaction?

Thank you all for jumping in and explaining some things to me. However, I might be even more confused when all is said and done.
From what I read in the comments, NFT is a form of microtransaction.
But, what I understood from the article, they will sell NFT of videos, photos and sounds.
I might be tooootally wrong on this, but I haven't seen anywhere that they plan to implement NFT as a way to pay for additional content in video games. Therefore, it doesn't affect the game, nor does that affect the gamers that are, obviously, not willing to pay for NFT, so it is not money out of their pocket.

Basically, I am told NFT is form of microtransaction, but from my of research, it is a token/code to make you "the owner" of a visual medium on the internet (even though anyone can copy it). I doubt the visuals matter that much, it is more about the code, but that is a whole other thing that I don't have enough knowledge to go into.

Stop saying that complaining on the internet solves nothing, it does.

However, much more important is not buying, complaining on the internet means anything if people buy anyway, and the sad truth, is that many things like microtransactions, Loot Boxes and NFTs, it doesn't matter if most people boycott if the money from just a few whales counts more than thousands of normal customers.

@dBackLash Enlighten us oh, wise one, how can NFT benefit gaming without creating devolving in Diablo III's real money AH.

Good.. use that fivehead of yours, lol

Maybe one of these companies just needs to move forward with their NFT plans and see it fail. Then we can put an end to this nonsense.

I'm not sure which company because I don't want to see it hurt them too bad if it's a beloved company like SEGA.

I love how these companies all collectively and hivemindedly agreed that we would want to buy NFTs, and have been trying to trick smooth brains into thinking it's the new positive and innovative thing we need.

If we ever need proof that companies truly don't give two sh*ts about their customers, just remember how hard they were pushing for NFTs and trying to trick people into buying them

@Yorumi Sure, some indies will continue the traditional model, but I fear it'll get to a point that that part of the market is really a niche, and not what most people consider gaming. It also doesn't necessarily consider the long term effect of subscription services like Game Pass and Sony's rumored upcoming sub, either encouraging mtx to make money from "cheap" game offerings, or staving off mtx by offering recurring payment up front (and arguably Game Pass already has a mostly indie focus anyway.)

Still, we've seen gaming devolving closer to gambling for years, and now I'm starting to see real gambling competing in gaming's turf, at least in mobile, and, really, making an even bigger marketing push. As gaming (especially mobile gaming) has been more and more designed to hit that gambling addiction center of the brain, and encourage continuous spending, without any chance of financial gain, it almost makes real gambling seem like the more value conscious activity since it comes with the chance of actual financial gain. Seeing actual casinos move into the mobile space in full force is both horrifying and, at the same time, having watched the game industry...feels completely natural. Why got to Vegas, when Vegas is always with you? Once iPimp comes out, Vegas might as well just get bulldozed and replaced with more mixed-use luxury apartment & office complexes.

Plus, in this case, we're talking about Sega-Sammy. The larger half of their company is literally a gambling machines company....

@NEStalgia It's the REAL real arcade experience from home, every life is a transaction... Kinda like Double Dragon III

@Yorumi Ah, okay, that makes much more sense. Thank you.
I do think NFTs will come to video games more and more. There was much fuss when microtransactions were introduced, everyone was against it, and yet a good chunk of people are paying in microtransactions, and they will pay with NFTs as well.
Is it baffling anyone would buy NFT? Yes, but the fact is, it is a growing business, so it makes sense for video games to dip their toe in that pond.
Do I agree with them introducing NFTs in video games? Hell no.

Just another announcement of an announcement from good ol Sega. Good thing those ‘users’ caught on to their ‘money-making’ or they’d not have been able to announce that they’ll announce a plan later

Still don't know why companies are even bothering with them.

@dBackLash I mean people would still fine them pointless regardless

@MatoFilipovic Yup, you're missing something.
NFT's are proof of ownership certificates which are non-fungible.
But that's the catch: The certificate is non-fungible, not the item in question.
What you sell NFT's for is irrelevant. It just happened to be that the most famous example at the moment are these ugly monkey png's.

NFT's had the goal to create digital scarcity. Because nothing drives impulse purchases more than "Only X left in stock!" and you couldn't feasibly do that online without getting laughed at.
NFT's are a way to exploit that, because they are finite.
But again, the NFT themselves, not the item in question!

That's why people mock the idea by copying said NFT monkeys.
Everyone now owns the actual image, but only one person can proof that they actually, truly, genuinely own it...
And if you think this is stupid, congrats, you understood it.

@MatoFilipovic An NFT is just a code to 'something'. In the case of videogames, it's usually a code to a cosmetic of some sort you can use in game. It doesn't have to be a picture.

In the case of Quartz for example, every NFT let's you use a gun with it's specific pattern and serial #.

...Which is no different from the microtransactions before, other than costing more and having a serial #.

This comment section confuses me.