If you follow the investment and venture capital money, it’s easy to see where Korean MMO design studios are heading for (and what will end up as cash grabs in other regions similar to the first wave of PC MMO’s that ended up being published in the west, and then the tsunami of Unreal Engine 4 based mobile games of those studios main IP’s). Studios are still pushing out mobile versions of their IP’s; NCSoft has so many different mobile titles of the Lineage franchise that it isn’t even worth keeping up with, IMC Games recently held its first Korean CBT for Tree of Savior M. This is called milking the franchise for all that it is worth.
Similarly, more studios are now switching up their production pipeline to include Unreal Engine 5, while building on a newer foundation that includes blockchain technology. Basically, gaming platforms are going to start jumping on the buzzword bandwagon so expect to see more marketing PR BS with NFT’s in the cash shop along with games incorporating the metaverse (I’ve already given my opinion on the metaverse), from many of the major development studios over the course of 2022 and beyond.
WeMade Tree (a subsidiary of WeMade Entertainment which is best known for Riders of Icarus and MIR4), has been building an entire blockchain platform called WEMIX Network for their future games (they’ve been at it since 2019). Part of the premise for the technology is to allow transfer of assets (in simple english, you can expect more underhanded monetization of acquiring in-game assets in addition to UGC that players themselves can sell/barter/trade as NFT’s.
Here’s a copypasta definition of NFT’s: NFT’s are blockchain-based tokens that each represent a unique asset such as a piece of art, digital content or media. They cannot be reproduced, altered or counterfeited, thereby giving the holder full ownership of the digital asset. Uh… guess what? What’s displayed on the screen, can be captured (screengrab, OBS, Xbox Capture, etc). Are we rendering that useless on computer platforms? Even if all that were to be rendered useless, I can still just use a high quality digital camera to do the same (much higher quality for a screen that has high pixel density like a 24″ 4K display). This is basically copy protection 2.0 where there are ways to get around that. Yes, that is piracy. But anti-piracy isn’t really the primary objective of NFT’s, most of which have no real value similar to how physical collectible assets that have little rarity, aren’t either (and desirable physical items are similarly reproduced, as counterfeits). It’s particularly problematic with trying to find ways to protect digital assets without having the entire ecosystem locked down to take into account such technology. That’s the primary thing with NFT’s where it sounds good on paper, but is pretty much an early money making grift (of bringing the physical collectibles paradigm to the digital space) that will make the early folks a ton of money, before the entire scheme fails.
Other major Korean gaming studios have announced their own initiatives including NCSoft with their “play to earn” games coming this year. I mean a lot of earlier titles (the ones in existence since the prior decade) already did this (try to keep players in their specific titles with cash shop mechanics where they can earn additional rewards by spending more time in-game) since that was a core design component of the game portals used in many PC Bang cafes where you purchased play time slots and had your choice of way too many games to play (and each game company had an ulterior motive to keep you in their game in order to spend money for QoL and pay to convenience items to shortcut the grind). With this new platform, you’ll be able to earn game specific cryptocurrency to spend in that game. What a marvelous concept /s. Yes, the executives at these companies think we are all stupid. In simple english, WHAT’S OLD, HAS BECOME NEW AGAIN.
If this already all sounds like cancer, guess what? It is. Developers and publishers will make it sound like it’s a win for all. But we already know how greedy and ethicless the gaming industry is. Another key catchphrase that is being tossed around is “experiential value” which is the cognitive characteristics that can be experienced through consumption. The objective is no different than the dopamine fix one gets when you get a great drop, or get that rare item from a loot box. The use of blockchain tech allows extending something that is generally controlled by the developer and/or publisher, to include other players (while also leveraging other concepts like return on investment which again, preys on players who are very much easy targets for the whole sunk cost fallacy that at times, keeps them playing due to the amount of money they spent in a game). Players already try to find ways to exploit bugs and faulty mechanics in these online games. Some also try to scam other players out of their items or gold. Guess what is going to happen with NFT’s and game platform specific cryptocurrency? PSvPS (player scamming versus player scamming).
Again, this is the gaming industry that has long found ways to exploit and abuse their captive audiences. This is going to increase exponentially to also include more player based exploitation and abuse. NFT’s are one of the worst “scams” I’ve seen being pushed onto the general public. And now this garbage is going to be entering the gaming space where it’s going to make the whole deal with loot boxes, seem tame. It’s whatever for me at this point because I believe the video gaming industry is beyond salvageable in terms of running their businesses with a lot more integrity. Yes, some people are making out so long as they cash out. But like every other scheme that suckers in the unknowing who do not cash out, they are the ones who are left holding the bag once all the early folks, have exited the market.
