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“Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

paulbutler.org

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Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#451

Post by jkhdigital »

danShumway wrote: post #170
58x14 wrote: post #32

In the late 2000s, as a teenager, I was gifted a Runescape account. This account had level 80+ woodcutting, allowing one to chop magic trees - which would produce the most expensive lumber in the game. It took a staggering number of real hours to achieve this skill level, we're talking several hundred hours minimum. At some point I had realized that there were different sketchy websites that would buy and sell the in…

I know a lot of people have fond memories of this kind of thing, but from a designer perspective, is it good that a game is so boring that players are willing to pay real-world money to skip parts of it? Runescape set up a system that was so grind-heavy that players broke server rules and wrote automated scripts to grind for them, and other players gave them money to do that. Because the minute-to-minute gameplay of…

People play games for all sorts of personal reasons. “Boring” gameplay is apparently in demand. If you don’t like that kind of game, don’t play it. If you don’t understand how anyone else could possibly spend time on it, then maybe you should open your mind and talk to some of these people to try and understand what is undoubtedly a much more complex phenomenon than you believe it to be.

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#452

Post by unnouinceput »

chii wrote: post #426
JCharante wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe the buy in is $1000, it would have to be a AAAA game to demand that price tag, but it's not so it's just a disguised Ponzi scheme. The way the media have been reporting this as a way for Filipinos to earn income is disgusting, because they're tricking financially challenged people to fall for this Ponzi scheme by making it look legitimate with the media attention.

Just like herbalife or many of those MLM schemes, the initial entry fee does sound like scam. I wonder how long it takes to earn back the initial entry fee?

And let's not forget the oldest of them all, Star Citizen. Bet another pandemic will come and go and that game will still be in alpha

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#454

Post by chii »

jayd16 wrote: post #183

Selling digital goods for real money is pretty well tread. What does web3/crypto add here? Game assets can't be used in another game. You need full support from the game developer. The devs could much more easily and cheaply sell the assets direct or support trading. If the game is distributed or has private servers or something that might warrant defi trades, but wouldn't gamers just hack their own items? If they co…

> wouldn't gamers just hack their own items?

if the game could be such that this is equivalent of proof-of-work, then it would be fine.

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#455

Post by syspec »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #403
mgraczyk wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money doesn't have to come from anywhere. Sometimes new value is created and the money is brand new. This is how GDP grows. In the case of BTC, it's pretty clear that a huge portion of the market cap didn't come from anywhere. It's new capital. That doesn't mean it can't go to 0 and vanish overnight. But it does mean that play to earn games don't always need money coming in to pay out.

Fiat is created by banks - by originating loans. A bank does not actually need to have that money to create the loan - it is not transferred from somewhere else, it is just that the bank's balance sheet expands. There are rules on how much a bank is allowed to create, as you might imagine. The BTC system does not create money - you can follow the creation of a coin system to its eventual destruction and discover that…

I completely agree with you, but I’m wondering if you could help me debate the counter argument: “The same is true of stocks, if people decide to stop putting money in, no money comes out”

It comes up whenever I make a point similar to yours above, and I haven’t had a good answer for it

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#456

Post by jkhdigital »

jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #309
danShumway wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a lot of people have fond memories of this kind of thing, but from a designer perspective, is it good that a game is so boring that players are willing to pay real-world money to skip parts of it? Runescape set up a system that was so grind-heavy that players broke server rules and wrote automated scripts to grind for them, and other players gave them money to do that. Because the minute-to-minute gameplay of…

Grinding is boring but it's also extremely satisfying when you finally achieve your desired level. It feels like a real achievement, and it lets you show off to other players because they know how much time you had to spend. If it was also fun, it wouldn't be as impressive. In that way it's sort of like Proof of Work in Bitcoin. If it wasn't a total waste (that is, if the work itself produced something useful that wa…

> In that way it's sort of like Proof of Work in Bitcoin.

It’s not sort of like PoW, it is basically exactly the same. People play games for fun, but they also play for status. Status, like Bitcoin, has a hard supply cap so there is no limit to the amount of energy that individuals might expend in pursuit of it.

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#457

Post by xuki »

firekvz wrote: post #424

I didnt read much of the thread but I will assume that most of the people here is aware of how every single NFT game is just a ponzi. But I've lived myself, what the author mentions as a "way to lift people out of poverty.", from the era before NFT or "play to earn" games existed. I come from Venezuela, a full 3rd world country and I was "lucky" to play an MMO (lineage 2) during my young days and somehow I was good a…

That's an awesome story. While I've never lived in poverty, I got my first taste of making money by making bot for a FaceBook game in 2008 (WarBook, if anyone remembers that). I only made around 2,000 USD but that experience really changed my life.

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#458

Post by gitfan86 »

toomanydoubts wrote: post #434
gitfan86 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what people don't seem to understand about BitCoin. It is cashflow negative, Money has to keep coming in to keep the price up due to paying miners. It is totally fine if you think BTC is better than the USD or Gold for whatever reason. But Bitcoin is still cashflow negative. You have to keep pumping money into it to keep up its value. Where is that money going to come from? Is it coming from Tether? Is it com…

How is that different at all from fiat currencies? Every electronic transaction you make, like credit card or money transfers, has fees. Central banks have to keep pumping money into the economy so we can have the same nominal amount of cash in the system(albeit with lower value, because inflation). So, my question is, is fiat currency cashflow positive? How?

No money doesn't have positive cashflow, that is why it is a stupid investment.

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#459

Post by digitailor »

syspec wrote: post #449
digitailor wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Help me understand. Are you saying that former LEO are well-served from a PR standpoint by attaching themselves to the "points" you're holding are clearly evidenced by the parent post?

Yes, especially the ones that become politicians.

OK, I think I get it better. I'm not disagreeing and sincerely appreciate the cynicism, but you're saying the guy who ran on a relatively classic tough-on-crime platform is also appealing to some kind of criminal subclass of NYC voter who prefers bitcoin to cash for their locally committed crimes and also appreciates tough-on-crime platforms for everything else?

Perhaps... or maybe the reputation for crime that some people are intent on projecting onto bitcoin is not particularly accurate to the realities of currencies used most frequently in the commission of criminal activity.

Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs

#460

Post by almost_usual »

mancerayder wrote: post #438
58x14 wrote: post #32

In the late 2000s, as a teenager, I was gifted a Runescape account. This account had level 80+ woodcutting, allowing one to chop magic trees - which would produce the most expensive lumber in the game. It took a staggering number of real hours to achieve this skill level, we're talking several hundred hours minimum. At some point I had realized that there were different sketchy websites that would buy and sell the in…

Anyone interested in some nostalgia? Long ago there was an MMO called Ultima Online. At one point gold on there reached the point that it was more expensive than the Italian lira. This was in a kooky time in 1999 when everything was at a peak. Here's the old article. The NYT just wasn't having it. THE WAY WE LIVE NOW THE NEW ECONOMY Money for Nothing A new breed of Internet profiteers is spinning virtual gold into ha…

I remember castles in Ultima Online going for thousands of dollars around then on eBay. I think an 800pt Grandmaster build character went for a couple hundred dollars to $1k depending on the skill set.

I knew someone at the time who bought a brand new sports car with all the money they made off Ultima Online.

I honestly miss the game, had a blast playing it back in the day.

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