Remember when NFTs sold for millions of dollars? 95% of the digital collectibles are now probably worthless.::NFTs had a huge bull run two years ago, with billions of dollars per month in trading volume, but now most have crashed to zero, a study found.
Video game ownership rights have been going downhill for years. Most games can disappear from your account at a whim, and you can’t sell them on when you’re done anymore. At least with blockchain-based DRM, you’d be able to sell it when you’re done - and if the thing is hosted in a decentralized manner (IPFS, Pinata etc) then the creator can’t simply delete it or delist it. You’d own it without permission.
In theory it could be a good idea. If done right.
Or not. The company could choose not to honor that sale.
In the situation I’m referring to, the issuer has no control over the asset once it’s been bought; it would be sold to another buyer, and the transaction could be done on any third party marketplace. In return for loss of this discretionary power, the issuer receives a cut of the secondary resale - that is baked into the token when it is created.
It’d be as close to mimicking the rights of owning a DRM-free physical copy that I know of, with the added bonus of cutting creators into the secondary market, which incentivizes them to care about long term support. I like that bit, and it is too rarely mentioned.
Why not instead imagine a future without DRM where there’s no artificial scarcity for digital goods?
If I’m in the mood to fantasize, I can do a little better than that.
Hmm, kind of an open source Steam client that shares game files in a secure and verified peer to peer manner and only lets users play that have the corresponding NFT in their connected wallet. Now you’d only need an incentive for someone to develop something better and way more complex than Steam without making anything close to the same profit from it. Also you’d need a reason for publishers to sell their games this way, if after half a year they won’t sell a single copy anymore, as there is always someone that offers their used license cheaper.
Uh, yeah. GameStop is making it, from what I hear. They can’t keep selling old physical copies forever and the new board knows it. They’re already partnered with some blockchain firms to build it. Means + motive on a platter.
As to why a developer would go for it? This kind of token can be sold on any such marketplace, but can have a royalty baked in so that no matter who sells it or where, they get a perpetual revenue stream. I usually hate rent-seeking behavior, but in the case of software you need a way to pay for continued support, and this solves it.
You’re adding another person to the equation (the player that sells their game) and everyone is supposed to profit? Someone will make a loss compared to the status quo for this to work out and it’s never the marketplace operator.
When we buy a game, there is already an intermediary. The GoG, Steam, Itch, whatever. This would be the same number of middlemen. The unique selling point would actually be disintermediation, since buyers would be able to resell the game and creators would be cut into the ‘used game’ market, giving them an incentive to maintain its quality long-term. There are other useful angles as well, but that’s the one I like best.
I would say that wouldn’t solve the main problem with DRM, the fact that it locks you out of your own computer. I don’t settle for any DRM.
I prefer physical DRM-free copies. If the industry as a whole is going to try to move away from that model, as it appears to be, I’m not going to walk away from gaming; I’d rather be at the table and talk about viable compromises rather than be left out of the conversation.