1. Can be traded on the chain the publisher integrated in their game,
2. Can be limited in numbers based on random drops, such that the publisher will not have infinite "printing" privilege,
3. Will require the wallet connected to your account in the game,
4. Owning the digital file permits the owner to actually use the item.
I don't see digital ownership for video games NFTs as unfeasible, nor bullshit.
You don't want or need blockchain for this. The game publisher is the centralized source of truth. You're essentially talking about decentralized DRM, which has no benefit on top of DRM for either the user or the publisher.
> Can be limited in numbers based on random drops, such that the publisher will not have infinite "printing" privilege
This does absolutely nothing to curb the publisher's power to make more items.
They own the game. They can agree to the "contract" of the blockchain and then break it at any time. As long as they can change the game bits, there is no added security from blockchain.
> Will require the wallet connected to your account in the game
Who would want this and why? If anything, it's another avenue for de-anonymizing a wallet with no added benefit for the wallet owner.
> Owning the digital file permits the owner to actually use the item.
Again, the game developer permits the owner to use them. Blockchain could be an authentication scheme, but it doesn't take that power away from the developer.
> I don't see digital ownership for video games NFTs as unfeasible, nor bullshit.
You haven't proposed a problem that blockchain can actually solve. For the problems you implied, I offered easy workarounds.
The problem with NFTs is that they don't actually prove anything outside of themselves. You can "own" a copy of some 0s and 1s in a particular order, but that doesn't change the fact that the file can be infinitely replicated by anyone once it's decrypted.
This is untenable going forward if the industry continues to have a rising cost curve. Raph Koster's discussion of game cost is a good overview of what's happening and the challenges that result from it.
The step towards an NFT market begins with the creation of viable transfer mediums - assets not optimized towards particular games but with a reasonable degree of retargetability. The market for modding and independent asset creation then writes to that format and some games start to subscribe to it, enacting a "Multiverse". At that point opting in to an NFT market and allowing trade across games becomes a viable way to offer new experiences at lower cost, and the tokens themselves are meaningful for the same reasons that existing microtransaction tokens are - use value in-game, ability to "flex", but probably not an in-game advantage(unless we go full "Barcode Battler" and manufacture a randomized meaning from the token).
This isn't hypothetical - ESPA/Digitalax is an example of an attempt to make this market. It's pre-launch with a lot of unanswered elements on the technology side of things - I doubt the format that they currently propose - but the concept otherwise makes sense, and it's possible to pivot, aim lower, and not go for universal formats right off the bat.
> The step towards an NFT market begins with the creation of viable transfer mediums - assets not optimized towards particular games but with a reasonable degree of retargetability.
You seem to be completely ignoring the points in my post.
You can do this without blockchain. In fact, blockchain would be a hindrance. If I create a game that supports a common asset format (which is a dubious concept to begin with), then I have already centralized the "truth" of the asset's value. I, the developer, and not the blockchain, determine the ownership. I can completely ignore whatever the blockchain says at any time. There is no contract. The ownership is meaningless because it is instantly ignorable.
> At that point opting in to an NFT market and allowing trade across games becomes a viable way to offer new experiences at lower cost
This would increase the cost of the game, not decrease it. It would do this in two ways:
1. Supporting a third-party format is going to take extra dev time. Games are not standardized enough at this point for the behavior of an asset to be fungible between games.
2. Selling unique assets (not allowing people to reuse existing assets) is what gives devs the highest margins. Custom assets are a revenue center, not a cost center.
-The Architect to Neo
>Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world where none suffered, where everyone would be happy? It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your "perfect world". But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. So the perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from.
-Agent Smith to Morpheus
https://www.thegamer.com/fortnite-default-insult-kids/
This might even be the point of having scarce skins, if we combine it with the causes for bullying:
https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/most-teen-bullying-occurs-among...
I can agree with limitations giving structure to our expression, but the consequences don't end there.