Granted, it's probably happening to some degree amongst the rubes. But I'm more convinced by the argument that the main driver behind NFT sales is a kind of pyramid scam: artists at the top get paid by anonymous "collectors" (read: crypto investors), which causes swarms of smaller artists enter and the price of eth to go up.
Because it is an easy way to launder/hide money?
Now, I'm not agreeing with parent comment in sentiment that this is all, or most, of what's happening (although introducing scarcity for the sake of it has to be related to creating perceivable value through inaccessibility), but if someone is twitter-famous, they are not anonymous. They are twitter-famous. There's nothing stopping one from identifying strongly with their handles or wallets.
In NFT space, every fake is a perfect digital replica.
Besides the fact that each NFT has a unique ID, and if Gucci would start selling NFTs, they would make it trivial to see a list of their own produced NFTs. Websites to check authenticity would pop up and you would just need to enter the ID to check if it's real or not.
"Perfect replicate" except it's a clone with new ID, sure.
With avatars I’d need to care enough to check the IDs. Or are you imagining the IDs floating about like labels in this new Metaverse?
1. Gucci decides to create "NFT clothes", whatever the fuck that means, but let's just go with it
2. For each item they release, they also release a .txt file with all the valid IDs for items they have released (or better, link their address that is doing the minting from their official website)
2. Game decide they want to integrate these "NFT clothes", so they download and integrate the .obj/.mat files for viewing, and hooks things up to the Gucci address/website
3. Game UI can now display a "Validate" button that will take the item ID, check if it comes from the Gucci address/published in the official "Gucci NFT .txt file" or similar.
The validation happens by the user, by checking that the NFT is actually released by Gucci. Gucci is the ones that need to publish which NFTs are legit. Game developers need to do nothing except adding UI/content.
Game now has to implement X number of items at significant developer cost.
There's literally zero incentive for devs to do this.
I mean overall I agree that NFTs serve little purpose, but hyperbole like this doesn't help to argue against NFTs, it just makes you look bad.
Yes, having cosmetic items in games seems ridiculous, I certainly don't "get" it, but lots of people seem to like it. Since cosmetic items seems to add some sort of value, it's not hard to argue that cosmetic items locked to NFTs probably also have some sort of value to some type of person.
But again, "literally zero incentive" is seemingly not true for anything today. Just because you don't understand/see a market for something like cosmetic items, doesn't mean that there is "literally zero" value in it.
What I do have a problem with is the idea some folks have that NFT’s are magically portable into other games. They’re not.
Where have anyone in this specific thread claimed such thing? No one has, and in fact I explicitly wrote about that the game developers have to get the content into the game (if Gucci for example published the NFT, ID and assets (.obj/.mat files)).
Why are you going on about that here?
None of those things have been argued against in this thread, yet you argue for that "Yes, those things have to be done!". Yeah, duh, we know this, what new information are you trying to provide but fail miserably at actually provide?
Developers like paid cosmetics because they get to sell the cosmetics. If its Gucci selling the cosmetics, and the people are just clicking a "Validate" button and somehow proving their ownership of the NFT, what incentive is there for the developer to add those clothes?
This way you find that NFT's sell for much more than other micro transactions, and for much higher prices. And by "much more" I mean, non NFT's wouldn't sell at all since this isn't really a game.
AHA! There we have it.
I was wondering the whole time what this is about, because it doesn't seem to solve any problem other than being a convoluted trading scheme that costs tons of energy and resources.
It all seems to be a case of 'who bets on the right horse' but this time with a pollution bonus on top - right before a climate crisis.
People are frustrated with the economy and this gives them the feeling of being in charge of something promising. An escape so to speak. But in the end it's just a slightly different group that exploits them.