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Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

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Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#131

Post by zenplant »

meheleventyone wrote: post #81
adnzzzzZ wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a video game maker myself I'd say that video games generally provide value. If this particular video game provides as much value as its valued at is not for me to decide, but for the people who play it and invest in it.

What if the only value is speculation or rent seeking on people that are poor? It’s already the case that the pay to earn economy crashed deeply. You keep saying value but without saying what that value actually is. Until a Ponzi scheme crashes everyone in it thinks it’s providing value after all. As a videogame maker myself I’d rather give my games away for free than setup the kind of economic trap Axie has.

Axie may have done it wrong, but the concept of in game currency has been shown to be wildly lucrative in the past. Let's take Valve as an example. You get a CS:GO knife you're sometimes able to sell that for a large chunk of money. Valve takes a gigantic cut of any of those transactions, and then the money can only be used to buy further products from them. Is that more ethical than what Axie is doing? Wouldn't it be neat if instead of "valve fun bucks" it were real world money that players could pay their rent with?

If someone does this correctly it could end up being a very good thing IMO.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#132

Post by zenplant »

hogFeast wrote: post #49
adnzzzzZ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's way more ethical for people across the world, primarily in 3rd world countries, to be able to share in the success of a company via its tokens than just being mined for data so some asshole in San Francisco can be paid 10 million dollars a month in rent.

It takes an extraordinary level of ignorance about basic elements of how business works (which I am sure the investors in this company have in spades) to think this makes sense. In order for someone to make money for something, there has to be an activity that generates a cashflow. There is no cash flow being generated, there is no outside money, what value are these people creating for other people? If you are playi…

The outside money is the value people are willing to pay for in game stuff. If it's a good enough / popular enough game that ends up being billions of dollars. Ask Riot games how well you can do with just cosmetic items that do absolutely nothing but make your character model slightly different. Their net worth is hovering around 25 billion these days, mostly off of things you assume can provide no cash flow.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#133

Post by igorkraw »

zenplant wrote: post #129
igorkraw wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Answering directly to your questions, I don't have any religious background on this, I just see hijacking of our primitive vices for personal profit as immoral and shun-worthy. I think prohibition is bad (just creates Shadow markets) and the main thing to stop is running profitable gambling houses and advertising/incitement - if nobody could make a profit off of it, people would still gamble, but at least it would be…

Hijacking of our primitive vices, isn't that the basis for most economic activity? The food industry, television/movie industry, all of social media including the site we're on right now, the list goes on indefinitely. Normal video games without a crypto element do this as well. I currently have real money tokens in at least 4 of the most popular games, none of which I can ever get anything back from except in game c…

Well, yes,you have rediscovered a core theme of criticism against the capitalist, consumerist mode of production anarchists and other leftists tend to raise, together with commodification. There is a coherent view that most AAA video games are skinner boxes aimed at extracting cash and Indie Games being closer to the "original" idea of them, and there are real discussions to be had about grinding on that context as a worthwhile escapism vs. a symptom of a bigger problem vs. a tool to build emotional investment that will keep you subscribing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm the old man yelling at the crypto cloud as well, but in this case I'm the old man yelling at business foundations of questionable morality. Providing healthy food, fodder for emotional and personal comfort and growth or shelter has very different business models and foundations from providing fast food/sweets, skinner Box Dopamine drips or artificially hyped status Symbols.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#134

Post by zenplant »

igorkraw wrote: post #133
zenplant wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hijacking of our primitive vices, isn't that the basis for most economic activity? The food industry, television/movie industry, all of social media including the site we're on right now, the list goes on indefinitely. Normal video games without a crypto element do this as well. I currently have real money tokens in at least 4 of the most popular games, none of which I can ever get anything back from except in game c…

Well, yes,you have rediscovered a core theme of criticism against the capitalist, consumerist mode of production anarchists and other leftists tend to raise, together with commodification. There is a coherent view that most AAA video games are skinner boxes aimed at extracting cash and Indie Games being closer to the "original" idea of them, and there are real discussions to be had about grinding on that context as a…

I agree with you entirely. Our society is very unhealthy in it's current form. But the fact is unless we want the economy to go into complete shambles (which we very well may need to happen to survive what's coming) we can't stop doing what we're doing. The difference I see with something like Axie, if done properly, is that instead of the big daddy corporation taking all the money from on high, there's potential for the consumer to partake in the success of the game.

As an example I play a bunch of league of legends currently. During the pandemic it's been a godsend for spending time with my friends. We've all bought multiple skins during this time which has amounted to probably a couple of hundred dollars between all of us. You can also earn random skins, but because typically people don't play most champions these random skins often just sit there wasted. What if instead those random skins could be sold or traded to other players? Take it one step further, what if there were unique skins that only 1 player could have at a time? I could see something like that selling for thousands of dollars. It creates a load of economic activity at the cost of absolutely nothing. We're all already using the systems in droves, crypto/nfts are just a way to have some form of actual ownership.

It's a brilliant concept, and the moral argument against it really is also moral argument against everything already in place in most of the biggest industries around.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#135

Post by igorkraw »

zenplant wrote: post #134
igorkraw wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes,you have rediscovered a core theme of criticism against the capitalist, consumerist mode of production anarchists and other leftists tend to raise, together with commodification. There is a coherent view that most AAA video games are skinner boxes aimed at extracting cash and Indie Games being closer to the "original" idea of them, and there are real discussions to be had about grinding on that context as a…

I agree with you entirely. Our society is very unhealthy in it's current form. But the fact is unless we want the economy to go into complete shambles (which we very well may need to happen to survive what's coming) we can't stop doing what we're doing. The difference I see with something like Axie, if done properly, is that instead of the big daddy corporation taking all the money from on high, there's potential for…

It feels like you are agreeing with me only to go back to defending the thing you call sick? My whole point is that we might not be able to change the system, but we can at least refuse to accept it.

Other points touching on ideas you raise:

1. If I understand correctly, has a 20% premine system of AXS that represents ownership of the platform. Even if it didn't have a premine, this is the same as having a public corporation owning the platform. If Axie was a co-op where every player had 1 vote and would share equally in the profits, it'd be a bit differen, but otherwise, you can just buy tencent share if you want t participate in the success of the game 2. You are describing any game with tradeable assets, e.g. Pokemon. Right now, millionaires are making more money with pokemon unboxing (or maybe that fad died already), and similarly whoever has the best starting position will cash in on Axie...as long as enough people FOMO in 3. Which goes back to the dual fundamental sicknesses of capital tendency to concentrate and corrupt if left unchecked and profiting off of these easily exploited human desires without providing value in return. If you enjoy playing a game, you will pay for a game. That's fine. But we call artificial sparsity, spaced random rewards etc. dark patterns for a reason. Acting like the business model of e.g. brother's a tale of two sons and Axie are the same is disingenuous (and DotA existed without needing a company running the skinner Box...)

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#136

Post by hobs »

zenplant wrote: post #131
meheleventyone wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the only value is speculation or rent seeking on people that are poor? It’s already the case that the pay to earn economy crashed deeply. You keep saying value but without saying what that value actually is. Until a Ponzi scheme crashes everyone in it thinks it’s providing value after all. As a videogame maker myself I’d rather give my games away for free than setup the kind of economic trap Axie has.

Axie may have done it wrong, but the concept of in game currency has been shown to be wildly lucrative in the past. Let's take Valve as an example. You get a CS:GO knife you're sometimes able to sell that for a large chunk of money. Valve takes a gigantic cut of any of those transactions, and then the money can only be used to buy further products from them. Is that more ethical than what Axie is doing? Wouldn't it b…

Co-opting an existing player base to inject capitalism in it has flooded the market with bots, trade scams, and constant annoying spam "hey do you still want those headphones? how about that group?"

The only people who benefit from the CS:GO knives are the ones who are extremely lucky or constantly performing economic activity at the expense of the community, its not good.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#137

Post by smoldesu »

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #125
sailingparrot wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here the "external" source of money for players would be the investors who don't play the game and for investors it would be players playing the game because they think it's fun They are all part of the same system, both the investor and the players buy or get some AXS, and both hope that AXS will go higher so they can make actual $ later on. None of them are putting $ in the system that they do not want to get bac…

Sorry but I just disagree. A game that is free to play and where every item is bought and can be sold later for a higher price doesn't stop being fun and engaging just because people can sell what they bought when they feel like they don't wanna play anymore. The idea that there absolutely need to be people who are buying things without the intent of ever selling them isn't what would stop from making it a "ponzi sch…

So what you're trying to tell me is that trickle-down economics works in the context of an app?

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#138

Post by meheleventyone »

zenplant wrote: post #131
meheleventyone wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the only value is speculation or rent seeking on people that are poor? It’s already the case that the pay to earn economy crashed deeply. You keep saying value but without saying what that value actually is. Until a Ponzi scheme crashes everyone in it thinks it’s providing value after all. As a videogame maker myself I’d rather give my games away for free than setup the kind of economic trap Axie has.

Axie may have done it wrong, but the concept of in game currency has been shown to be wildly lucrative in the past. Let's take Valve as an example. You get a CS:GO knife you're sometimes able to sell that for a large chunk of money. Valve takes a gigantic cut of any of those transactions, and then the money can only be used to buy further products from them. Is that more ethical than what Axie is doing? Wouldn't it b…

Stuff being wildly lucrative isn’t necessarily a great benchmark. On paper at least Axie has been wildly lucrative. Being wildly lucrative for some people who can pay their rent doesn’t make it moral either. As my sibling comment notes there’s also no free lunch and the lucrative for some people part has negatives for the rest of the player base.

That said I have nothing against player made cosmetics being sold but there are much more obviously equitable ways of doing that.

And then the elephant in the room that cosmetics are not game affecting and there is utterly no reason to use a blockchain for any of this.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#139

Post by adnzzzzZ »

iamevn wrote: post #127
adnzzzzZ wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but I just disagree. A game that is free to play and where every item is bought and can be sold later for a higher price doesn't stop being fun and engaging just because people can sell what they bought when they feel like they don't wanna play anymore. The idea that there absolutely need to be people who are buying things without the intent of ever selling them isn't what would stop from making it a "ponzi sch…

How is the token increasing in value outside of people speculating on it? The only money entering the system is investors and fees drain that out of the system. Without people spending, not investing, the system is doomed to hurt people who are left holding tokens when everyone else has cashed out.

>The only money entering the system is investors and fees drain that out of the system

? Fees are generally extremely small. All the money that enters the system is from investors and from players. The fees are minimal and have almost no effect on this.

>Without people spending, not investing,

Those are the same thing because both players and investors can cash each other's money out. There's literally no distinction between both things.

>the system is doomed to hurt people who are left holding tokens when everyone else has cashed out.

That's the case with every stock that currently exists. When a company fails there will be bag holders who lost a lot of money. Ideally the company doesn't fail and keeps making games forever.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#140

Post by Karrot_Kream »

igorkraw wrote: post #133
zenplant wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hijacking of our primitive vices, isn't that the basis for most economic activity? The food industry, television/movie industry, all of social media including the site we're on right now, the list goes on indefinitely. Normal video games without a crypto element do this as well. I currently have real money tokens in at least 4 of the most popular games, none of which I can ever get anything back from except in game c…

Well, yes,you have rediscovered a core theme of criticism against the capitalist, consumerist mode of production anarchists and other leftists tend to raise, together with commodification. There is a coherent view that most AAA video games are skinner boxes aimed at extracting cash and Indie Games being closer to the "original" idea of them, and there are real discussions to be had about grinding on that context as a…

> Well, yes,you have rediscovered a core theme of criticism against the capitalist, consumerist mode of production anarchists and other leftists tend to raise, together with commodification.

I think this is a much more fruitful (if ultimately tautological due to its very definition) form of argument; you're a modern socialist and modern socialist mores drive your criticism. That brings up two questions for me:

1. What's the point of bothering with commenting or thinking about cryptocurrency at all? Cryptocurrency is all about a belief in some market, which socialists reject. It would be like a market libertarian criticizing the Soviet Union on the basis of not having a market; ultimately fruitless.

2. Do you voice similar opinions on all capitalist issues in which marketing and commodification are present? It would seem from a perspective of utility that cryptocurrency is probably one of the least harmful examples of this phenomenon. Do we disagree on our utility metric? Does utility not factor into your ethical judgement (e.g. are you a virtue ethicist)?

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