Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Says He's Wary Of 'Exploitative' NFT Game Projects

Good to know Xbox is not getting on board with this scam.

While companies policies can change 180° ratter quickly it is good to hear nonetheless. Let's face it Microsoft at the biggining of the last gen was the first to embrace mtx and I would like to avoid similar thing this gen

Is this similar to when people used to sell Wow leveled up characters?
Or is it more like earning a rare skin on say fortnight(the Simon Cowel of games) and selling it.

@Carck the companies involved says its like art. For example, you have a original piece of art, a paint, there are a lot of other copies of that paint, but only the original retains the high market value. Thats exactly what NFT want to do with digital assets. Be able to identify a original digital asset, so even if it gets copied hundreds or millions of times, you know what the original is and it retains that high market value, since you have a kind of certificate (nft), that states originality of that asset.

@Medic_Alert @Carck I feel exactly the same. I have always been very on it with technology and computers, but cryptocurrencies came along and kinda confused me and now NFT makes no sense to me whatsoever. Or, more importantly, I find I have no desire to know about it. I always thought I'd avoid being like my parents and getting left behind by tech and what 'the kids' are into, but I'm starting to see that becoming a reality. I also find every time I hear about NFTs, microtransactions and loot boxes that my desire to play a nice simple retro game on one of my old consoles increases greatly!

@Xiovanni don't give them any ideas.

Part of my actual job is researching things like this. The word exploitative doesn't even begin to describe some of the game decks I've seen. It's free to play/pay to win on steroids. Going to get ugly unfortunately

"and that some of the creative that I see today feels more exploitive than about entertainment"

You know what else is more about exploitation than it is entertainment? lootboxes and micros. So does this mean we won't be seeing anymore of that trash in Xbox first party titles?

Gears 5 and Halo Inifnite have obviously dropped their exploititive systems from their previous games. Hopefully this is a continued direction for the company.

@SplooshDmg Games are inherent dopamine hits. If you've ever criticised gameplay or a gameplay mechanic, you've complained that the manipulation tactic wasn't good enough.

What form will these NFTs take? Billions of slight variations on an image of Master Chief as an example. Seems like a waste of resources to me. They'll have about as much worth as an old VHS tape.

I keep reading articles about NFT and I'm here like... Wtf is NFT?

Does it effect us as gamers? If not then I don't need worry about it

@UltimateOtaku91 companies like EA are looking at NFT as yet another means of monetization. Imagine them starting to go predatory on sport game fans by letting them buy “unique” NFT card art or what not.

Two things I’ve heard. All you really own is a link to where the NFT sits on a server. If the hosting company ever ceased operation, all you own is a broken link. I really don’t see the point.

Second—anything blockchain related is so energy intensive it’s destroying the planet. It’s immoral. Video games use enough electricity—there’s no need to multiply it many times over just so publishers can make a few extra bucks.

@BionicDodo Because crypto doesn't actually make any sense. We're beyond "new technology escaping the old" and into "new technology the people accept as logical not actually being logical." It's the people that don't understand it that have made it have value, strangely. The blockchain itself isn't "hard to understand tech" it's just a mathematician's paradise normal people will never really "get". But understanding how the cryptography works on a mathematical level isn't necessary, just understanding what it does. And when what it does is understood, it becomes clear the idea of "mining" "currency" with it makes as much sense as using barcodes to cook soup. The technology makes sense, but it makes no sense in the context of how it's supposedly being used. It's great if you're into organized crime though.

The video game applications make more sense than mining imaginary currency out of thin air (tokenizing digital content) but then the applications of what that would be used for (as they propose it) makes no sense.

It's like those WATA game grading problems. If you understand what they're doing, you understand why it doesn't make sense to begin with, and it makes no sense people are buying their stuff for millions. There's no "getting left behind by kids and their tech" here. It's more a case of "the kids have gone stupid all at once and now believe in pixies and magic powder because it's on the internet and it's new."

@Medic_Alert @Carck Not too old. People bought tuna that's guaranteed not to turn pink in the can, and sugar syrup guaranteed to cure all ailments over 100 years ago, and charms to keep the spirits away hundreds of years before that, and I'm certain you're not older than them. Rubes and suckers ain't new.

The technology itself, would enable what we've actually been waiting for for 25 years: The ability to apply the same rights as physical ownership to digital ownership. The first time we could really own digital content as a genuine monetary asset with genuine resale value and the ability to transfer ownership. But that's not what they'll use it for. They'll use it for horse armor, magic swords, and auction houses in predatory video games.

@eduscxbox That would make sense if the original were in any way unique from all the others. An oil painting has actual oil pigment applied by the artist's hand on an aged canvas cloth. A sculpture was hand-sculpted by an artists. It's details are unique as a copy is based on a photograph, and the textures and materials are not the same. A digital asset is 100% identical down to every last pixel no matter how many times it's copied, and the "original" has no unique quality other than the serial number. It's feel good sales pitches on the idea, but it makes no sense unless the presence of the unique token is required to see/use the asset. In which case you're back to a fancy new method of DRM.

EDIT: I could tokenize this post. I could declare it my original creative work, my own original handmade manuscript. The problem is would it have more value than the version you just copied and pasted into notepad for any reason other than people being trained to "believe" it does? No. But NFT says it does.

I couldn't agree more Phil, I couldn't agree more...

@Carck I'm with you. I hear NFT and I just say okay, whatever, not for me.

I'm sure whatever NFTs Microsoft end up doing (they're not going to leave money on the table like this) I'm sure they'll say THEIR ones aren't exploitative.

@Medic_Alert yes, I agree, digital copies can be 100% cloned, so it essentially has no difference for us, but I also try to see this from the author perspective. The author of a digital art publish it on social media, someone copies de image, remove watermark and sell on the internet. With NFT, the author could easily prove the ownership of the asset, and that his work was stolen.