Indie game marketplace itch.io calls NFTs "a scam"

[midian182]

A hot potato: It might appear as if the video games industry is in love with NFTs, but not everyone has been throwing their weight behind non-fungible tokens. Indie game platform itch.io certainly isn’t a fan, having branded NFTs “a scam” and suggested those who support them should “reevaluate [their] life choices.”

With over 400,000 games and items, and its recent addition to the Epic Games Store, itch.io is a popular destination for those seeking indie titles. Some users have questioned its stance toward NFTs; is it more like Steam, which banned NFT/blockchain-based games, or the Epic Games Store, which welcomes them. It seems itch.io is closer to Valve on this one.

“NFTs are a scam,” tweeted the official itch.io account. “If you think they are legitimately useful for anything other than the exploitation of creators, financial scams, and the destruction of the planet the[n] we ask that please reevaluate your life choices.”

“Also f**k ny company that says they support creators and also endorses NFTs in any way. They only care about their own profit and the opportunity for wealth above anyone else,” itch.io continued in a follow-up tweet. “Especially given the now easily available discourse concerning the problems of NFTs.”

Also f̸̗̎ú̴̩c̷̖͌ḳ̵̀ any company that says they support creators and also endorses NFTs in any way. They only care about their own profit and the opportunity for wealth above anyone else.

Especially given the now easily available discourse concerning the problems of NFTs.

— itch.io (@itchio) February 6, 2022

That comment about companies endorsing NFTs could be directed at several organizations—Square Enix, Meta, Coinbase, Konami, GameStop, etc.—but it’s likely aimed at Ubisoft. The French firm has been vocal in its support of non-fungible tokens, standing its ground against the backlash and recently claiming the anger is due to gamers who just “don’t get it.”

But it’s starting to look as if the tide is turning in the battle against NFTs. More companies and individuals have decided they’re not worth the trouble: the Stalker 2 devs, Team 17, and voice actor Troy Baker have all backed down from various NFT projects. EA’s enthusiasm has cooled, and even some developers frown on them.

With its position made clear, itch.io is joining the likes of Josef Fares, director of the soon-to-be-a-movie/TV series It Takes Two, who says he would rather get shot than add NFTs to his games. Could more companies follow suit and publicly distance themselves from non-fungible tokens? PC Gamer does note, however, that unlike Steam, there are still some (non-parody) NFT games available on itch.io.

Masthead image: Andrey Metelev on Unsplash

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/93291-indie-game-marketplace-itchio-calls-nfts-scam.html

 

[bviktor]

But only because it is.

 

[winjer]

Glad to see more and more people calling them, for what they are: a scam

 

[Dimitriid]

Title should be "Indie game marketplace itch.io correctly calls NFTs 'a scam'"

 

[psycros]

Title should be "Indie game marketplace itch.io correctly calls NFTs 'a scam'"

Let's not encourage a decent tech site go full CNN.

 

[letsgoiowa]

Blaming an entire form of technology for bad actors selling bad things is like blaming the Internet for bad sites.
It's basically a protocol.
The hateful inorganic panic over the concept of unique tokens by people who don't know anything about the tech at all, fed top-down by curiously funded pieces.
To me, it shows that there's a very real fear from the ruling class about what smart contract platforms can do, so they want to smear it NOW and in any way possible.

 

[passwordistaco]

Blaming an entire form of technology for bad actors selling bad things is like blaming the Internet for bad sites.
It's basically a protocol.
The hateful inorganic panic over the concept of unique tokens by people who don't know anything about the tech at all, fed top-down by curiously funded pieces.
To me, it shows that there's a very real fear from the ruling class about what smart contract platforms can do, so they want to smear it NOW and in any way possible.

In most cases of a new tech, legitimate uses are introduced then possibly bad actors follow with the scams. The fact that NFTs went straight to the garbage/scam category is telling.

 

[Sausagemeat]

I don’t understand why people care. Let people buy NFTs if they want, so what. I mean people buy dumb **** all the time and we don’t bat an eyelid.

 

[fps4ever]

I don’t understand why people care. Let people buy NFTs if they want, so what. I mean people buy dumb **** all the time and we don’t bat an eyelid.

Sometimes ya just gotta snip stupid in the bud. But I agree, let it die like 3D TV.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Blaming an entire form of technology for bad actors selling bad things is like blaming the Internet for bad sites.
It's basically a protocol.
The hateful inorganic panic over the concept of unique tokens by people who don't know anything about the tech at all, fed top-down by curiously funded pieces.
To me, it shows that there's a very real fear from the ruling class about what smart contract platforms can do, so they want to smear it NOW and in any way possible.

The interesting tech is the use of blockchain and no one has a problem with that as far as I'm aware.
The problem with NFT's right now is they are purchased by the rich to invest in and use to take advantage of consumers with dreams you can eventually turn them in for more cash than what you paid for them. UBIsoft wants them in their games so they can make money off us with them.

Crypto is also a scam imo. So is Star Citizen and high end smartphones. Especially iPhones. How are you an American company with more money than god and have worse phones than what the Koreans and Chinese are putting out? In my opinion.....

 

[letsgoiowa]

In most cases of a new tech, legitimate uses are introduced then possibly bad actors follow with the scams. The fact that NFTs went straight to the garbage/scam category is telling.

That's the thing though: it didn't. You just weren't told about the actual legit ones, only the stupid stuff like monkey jpegs that get you in weird discord servers and invited to raves.
Gods Unchained is basically the next generation of TCGs like Magic the Gathering where instead of having to buy a new game each time and buy a bazillion new cards to keep up, you straight up own the cards and keep it.
NBA Top Shots is the next generation of plain old trading cards for people who really like that. You know how big Pokemon cards are lately? There's definitely interest in this stuff.
Now it looks like MS and Gamestop are collaborating to build a digital game shop on Immutable X to help fix the state of digital game ownership. Right now, you don't own your games at all. Remember you used to be able to resell your old games once you got bored of them? This should bring trading and ownership to solve the digital games ownership problem, as well as taking a step to wipe out the gray/black market of G2A and key resellers.

 

[Puiu]

Blaming an entire form of technology for bad actors selling bad things is like blaming the Internet for bad sites.
It's basically a protocol.
The hateful inorganic panic over the concept of unique tokens by people who don't know anything about the tech at all, fed top-down by curiously funded pieces.
To me, it shows that there's a very real fear from the ruling class about what smart contract platforms can do, so they want to smear it NOW and in any way possible.

When the tech is currently only used for scams then yeah, you can blame the tech. And anything NFTs say they are "solving" has already been solved, there is no need to get blockchains involved.

"Legit" uses are just a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. For example, NFTs won't make the game second hard market better, they can't. Developers can VERY EASILY allow for game transfers/sales, but they just don't want to do it. The same with ingame items and everything else. You don't need NFTs to buy and sell stuff. It's just a marketing gimmick, a rebranding of something that many games already allowed users to do (making real money in games by playing is not new, trading for real money ingame items limited or not is not new, etc etc).

It would be much easier and better for everyone if MS just put a button next to the game you own that said "Sell on SH market" and used their store backend to make the sale happen and transfer the game to a different account. There is absolutely no need for an NFT for this to work.

 

[letsgoiowa]

The interesting tech is the use of blockchain and no one has a problem with that as far as I'm aware.
The problem with NFT's right now is they are purchased by the rich to invest in and use to take advantage of consumers with dreams you can eventually turn them in for more cash than what you paid for them. UBIsoft wants them in their games so they can make money off us with them.

Crypto is also a scam imo. So is Star Citizen and high end smartphones. Especially iPhones. How are you an American company with more money than god and have worse phones than what the Koreans and Chinese are putting out? In my opinion.....

That also falls into the same trap: blaming the technology for the problems. "Crypto is a scam" is lumping in actual projects with real use cases together with stupid meme coins like Shiba Inu and Dogecoin and whatever flavor of the month there is lately. Ethereum is practically a distributed world computer that actual infrastructure is being built on top of, like fair lending platforms, games, payment processing platforms among others. Heck, they even have *domain names* on Ethereum now. Have you seen IPFS before? They're building a more robust, resilient, and performant Internet on it. Helium is literally a user-run IOT and 5G network, but I guess that's not real.
Why do you think you're not hearing about these kinds of projects? Who would possibly have stake in preventing these things? Hmm....

 

[letsgoiowa]

When the tech is currently only used for scams then yeah, you can blame the tech. And anything NFTs say they are "solving" has already been solved, there is no need to get blockchains involved.

"Legit" uses are just a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

See my reply above. "Only used for scams" is indicates you aren't familiar with the subject to provide an opinion on it. If you can't even name three use cases, then you aren't informed enough on it.
I don't understand why people insist on yelling their opinions about stuff they've been disinformed about when they know they don't know much and there's no harm in just...not saying anything until you learn. "It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubts."

 

[passwordistaco]

That's the thing though: it didn't. You just weren't told about the actual legit ones, only the stupid stuff like monkey jpegs that get you in weird discord servers and invited to raves.
Gods Unchained is basically the next generation of TCGs like Magic the Gathering where instead of having to buy a new game each time and buy a bazillion new cards to keep up, you straight up own the cards and keep it.
NBA Top Shots is the next generation of plain old trading cards for people who really like that. You know how big Pokemon cards are lately? There's definitely interest in this stuff.
Now it looks like MS and Gamestop are collaborating to build a digital game shop on Immutable X to help fix the state of digital game ownership. Right now, you don't own your games at all. Remember you used to be able to resell your old games once you got bored of them? This should bring trading and ownership to solve the digital games ownership problem, as well as taking a step to wipe out the gray/black market of G2A and key resellers.

I kept looking for something that didn't fall into the garbage/scam category, and I couldn't find it.

Digital trading cards! BFD. "Let's digitize a physical item that has value because it is a physical item. Then we'll use blockchain to partially "undigitize" it to inflate it's value as a digital item". No, thank you. I don't want or need an NFT of the Mona Lisa, either.

As already noted, there is nothing stopping publishers from allowing second hand game sales without an NFT.

Somebody will probably come up with a useful purpose for NFTs. Doesn't seem to have happened yet.

 

[letsgoiowa]

"Let's digitize a physical item that has value because it is a physical item.

It's not valuable because it's a physical item. Why is money valuable? Not its physical item, but because of its "worth." Same reason why your magic numbers in the bank account are "worth" the same as paper.
I think you've missed the boat on how many digital collectibles that people have bought that had zero (0) physical alternative: skins are a big business these days and people are content with 100% digital goods.

I kept looking for something that didn't fall into the garbage/scam category, and I couldn't find it.

Because you don't even know what to look for, which is a sign you're not educated enough on the topic to do anything else but ask "please blockchain enthusiasts, may I have a drop of knowledge from your pool?" If you ask nicely, people can teach you. If you behave in a way that would warrant a child be in a time-out, then you need to learn manners first. Being openly toxic a la the original tweet is a shawl over ignorance.

As already noted, there is nothing stopping publishers from allowing second hand game sales without an NFT.

There actually is. They lack the infrastructure because you'd have to make your own system and we know how incredibly complex that is. That's no small task whatsoever. Secondly, royalties can easily be programmed into NFTs per resale, which meets publishers and users in a fair middle ground between gray market and primary source.

Somebody will probably come up with a useful purpose for NFTs.

That's how we really know that you're missing the point here. Merely copying over *the exact same functionality* would be dumb. You have to do it because there's an issue solved by the network being distributed and interoperable. There's no point in hosting game libraries on something like Immutable X unless you need interoperability, someone else to handle the infrastructure, and the ability to trade.
Have you noticed that you don't own your games? Steam does. You can't sell your games, that's a ToS violation. What about move them to another platform? Steam isn't designed around that at all and that would be crazy.
Same issue for a centralized digital identity system: you'd be introducing a single point of failure in what is likely a government database, which is not going to be very interoperable with anything you'd like it to be. Plus, costs for that infrastructure are entirely enormous and it certainly isn't as resilient as something like Ethereum.

 

[dangh]

Blaming an entire form of technology for bad actors selling bad things is like blaming the Internet for bad sites.
It's basically a protocol.
The hateful inorganic panic over the concept of unique tokens by people who don't know anything about the tech at all, fed top-down by curiously funded pieces.
To me, it shows that there's a very real fear from the ruling class about what smart contract platforms can do, so they want to smear it NOW and in any way possible.

No one is blaming technology, but use case. Blockchain is a valid and interesting technology. Nft is a use case of that technology which is oriented on scam.
Same with blackpowder - it is a great tech, but using it to shoot people in head is very bad use case of it.

 

[YouShallNotPass]

It's not valuable because it's a physical item. Why is money valuable? Not its physical item, but because of its "worth." Same reason why your magic numbers in the bank account are "worth" the same as paper.
I think you've missed the boat on how many digital collectibles that people have bought that had zero (0) physical alternative: skins are a big business these days and people are content with 100% digital goods.

I think the worth of money is a little different than virtual goods. Money is valuable because unlike some user generated crypto-currencies there are countries or organizations backing/stabilizing it making it recognizable. When I hold USD, I expect to be able to exchange a certain amount of goods/value with or within the US country. On the other hand, how much does a virtual goods worth is quite subjective. As for the value of owning a digital NTF version of mona lisa painting, I don't know how much it will sell for but I have a feeling those who buy it is not really buying anything but a meaningless NTF token key.

 

[Puiu]

I think the worth of money is a little different than virtual goods. Money is valuable because unlike some user generated crypto-currencies there are countries or organizations backing/stabilizing it making it recognizable. When I hold USD, I expect to be able to exchange a certain amount of goods/value with or within the US country. On the other hand, how much does a virtual goods worth is quite subjective. As for the value of owning a digital NTF version of mona lisa painting, I don't know how much it will sell for but I have a feeling those who buy it is not really buying anything but a meaningless NTF token key.

It's not valuable because it's a physical item. Why is money valuable? Not its physical item, but because of its "worth." Same reason why your magic numbers in the bank account are "worth" the same as paper.
I think you've missed the boat on how many digital collectibles that people have bought that had zero (0) physical alternative: skins are a big business these days and people are content with 100% digital goods.

Because you don't even know what to look for, which is a sign you're not educated enough on the topic to do anything else but ask "please blockchain enthusiasts, may I have a drop of knowledge from your pool?" If you ask nicely, people can teach you. If you behave in a way that would warrant a child be in a time-out, then you need to learn manners first. Being openly toxic a la the original tweet is a shawl over ignorance.

There actually is. They lack the infrastructure because you'd have to make your own system and we know how incredibly complex that is. That's no small task whatsoever. Secondly, royalties can easily be programmed into NFTs per resale, which meets publishers and users in a fair middle ground between gray market and primary source.


That's how we really know that you're missing the point here. Merely copying over *the exact same functionality* would be dumb. You have to do it because there's an issue solved by the network being distributed and interoperable. There's no point in hosting game libraries on something like Immutable X unless you need interoperability, someone else to handle the infrastructure, and the ability to trade.
Have you noticed that you don't own your games? Steam does. You can't sell your games, that's a ToS violation. What about move them to another platform? Steam isn't designed around that at all and that would be crazy.
Same issue for a centralized digital identity system: you'd be introducing a single point of failure in what is likely a government database, which is not going to be very interoperable with anything you'd like it to be. Plus, costs for that infrastructure are entirely enormous and it certainly isn't as resilient as something like Ethereum.

An NFT won't make you "own" your digital game just like you won't own the Mona Lisa. This much is certain.