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Comment by webkike | Hacker News Reader

Valve has already done this stuff in a way that makes far more sense. A lot of people lament CSGO’s skins (and yes they have some issues) but here are some points about them:

- Skins are purely cosmetic and tied to a competitive game that many people tie their life to. Cosmetics of differing expense make sense, the better players show off their personality in the expense and style of their cosmetics.

- Skins are tradeable on the steam market which itself is a ledger, no reason for it to be distributed.

- The best thing about skins is that after you buy them and you don’t want them anymore, you can resell them and recoup a portion of the money you spent, or in some cases even make profit.

- Additionally, because the ledger isn’t distributed, valve can actively change skins and fix mistakes to them. This allows for user submitted skins to even work, as they can respond to DMCA take downs

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Surely Ubisoft is just storing metadata about the items in the blockchain, not the actual model or anything. This whole thing is purpose-built to support the game. If the NFT says player X owns red_skin #33856, then the game will say such, but Ubisoft would still be free to change the model at their discretion or remove the item from the game if they want, making the NFT useless in such a case.

It really is not any different from Valve's system except it's way more complicated, it's using a trendy thing, you don't need Ubisoft to trade things (although you still have to complete trust in Ubisoft for the NFTs to have any use as they still have to mint the items and could still remove an item or ban a specific item number), item duplication is impossible, and fraud protection is impossible.

I think on the whole you’re correct. However, Valve taking a cut of items bought on the market I would argue is actually a feature, because it gives them an incentive to work on the game. Players who invest lots of money and players who don’t both benefit from the arrangement. And if you don’t like it, you can trade in person and do bank transfers and stuff like that

> Surely Ubisoft is just storing metadata about the items in the blockchain, not the actual model or anything.

So Ubisoft could delete the item from the game, and therefore owning the NFT means nothing. What's the point of using NFT instead of a Ubisoft owned DB?

Boom! Now you know what NFTs are.

> What's the point of using NFT instead of a Ubisoft owned DB?

Now they get to say they're using NFTs in their press.

Bingo. One of the biggest challenges these days for entertainment companies is successfully marketing their product. By saying they are using NFTs they've captured all sorts of free media attention.

And they've even launched this on an older game, so they can test if it results in increased engagement or revenue.

> What's the point of using NFT instead of a Ubisoft owned DB?

Less work. Maintaining a marketplace is resource intensive. If the same functionality can be achieved with NFTs, it makes little sense to use a proprietary solution.

There are simpler and cheaper databases that can do more than 40 transactions per second.

Blockchain lets them wash their hands of theft, just say "Oops, blockchain! It's theirs now, we don't control that."

Users may consider this a bug, but from Ubisoft's side it's less responsibility.

They have a marketplace. They have the accounts. They have the payment details. They need to keep track of purchases and make sure they are allowed under their conditions. The need to verify and integrate the items into their game. They need to tie specific ubisoft accounts to crypto wallets.

Are you seriously saying that their motivation was that it's less work?

This is how pretty much every NFT works.

They just embed a URL. You are buying a URL, which I think must be publically available due to being on the blockchain, unless it's encrypted with the buyer's pubkey which would make some sense.

This surely can't be true for the typical image-based NFTs? I thought the entire point is that the full JPEG is embedded in the blockchain, thus not being dependent on any image hosting service.

On chain storage is expensive per KB so the vast majority of image-based NFTs are stored on awful image hosting services. A very common complaint among NFT buyers is how many of the "NFT-specific" image hosting services have already gone down and/or (of course) respond to things like DMCA takedowns.

Thanks for the explanation, this makes me profoundly sad and is completely absurd. They call it "minting" which I actually thought was a neat way of putting the image itself on chain which can't be deleted and is permanent, so people spending crazy amounts of money can at least have the piece of mind that what they've bought is immutable. This shouldn't be considered an NFT at all.. imagine if bitcoin was just linking to a bank transaction. In fact- a definition of NFTs: "unique digital asset that is not directly replaceable with another digital asset" - swapping the results of the URL would invalidate this. What is the actual point?

The actual point is to scam people. With the support of true-believers that this is a thing to give it hype.

Crypto in general feels like MMM scams but for men.

It's not as bad as you think. If the frontend and database is open source, the assets will be mirrored, and therefore end up in a giant archive. This is what happened to Hic Et Nunc last month - founder decided to pull the plug, community resumed within a few hours with other sites. The power is in the technology mix: Blockchains and smart contracts secure the transactions, everything else can be secured with existing methods. It's an incentive structure shift that's still being explored - you always want a 100% archival because it protects the represented value on-chain. It pushes the business model away from platform control as well. They will most likely have to differentiate with curation and discovery services.

Currently, a lot of the frontends are not open. They pose the same degree of rugpull risk as any ordinary web site. That is unlikely to remain the status quo since both collectors and artists will ultimately demand a proof of redundancy. But as it stands, it's a bubble, and the rules aren't set.

Hmm, that's interesting. Does each NTF has a hash of the file linked, to confirm the mirrored asset is the same as the original?

That’s a smart question

No, it's just a URL.

The full image isn't embedded. Only a link to the image.

Most are stored on traditional hosting services, some are stored on other chains (IPFS) and some are stored on the parent chain. Data storage costs vary a lot depending on the chain.

Nope. There are some distributed blockchain file storage systems, but by and large NFTs don't use them.

You can check out the contract for the Big Ape Yacht Club NFTs, for yourself[1]

If you go to Contract and then Read, there's a function you can execute towards the end which gets you the URI for a token. If you grab a token ID[2] and enter it in, you'll get back an IPFS address. Should be more permanent than a random image hosting site, but it's certainly not the same as storing the image on the blockchain.

[1] https://etherscan.io/address/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118... [2] https://opensea.io/collection/boredapeyachtclub

> You are buying a URL,

No, you don't own the URL either, and if the URL goes away, you still own the NFT.

All you own is the NFT - a hex number that encodes the solution to an obscure equation.

Even if it wasn't storing metadata, Ubisoft can blacklist your NFT at any point.

Owning the NFT means nothing since you don't own the game in which they're used.

Yep. The same problem that infects almost all NFTs right now. The NFT is just a link, the item itself can disappear. It is too expensive to shove most NFT artworks into the blockchain itself.

Then surely the question is "why blockchain?"

I think you're essentially agreeing with the article - Ubisoft's plans make no sense beyond simply being trendy. They are worse in any practical sense than a simple server-side solution.

Yes, I am. Blockchains theoretical purpose is for a scenario where you need artificial digital scarcity when there are no trusted entities. Essentially any multiplayer game will require a trusted entity to originate the NFTs, host the server, and produce the clients. If you don't need to fund a trusted entity, there's no purpose to artificial scarcity.

A conventional database would obviously be much better for Ubisoft. This is just illogical fad-chasing.

Even if they stored the actual model they could simply change the game and ignore what the ledger says. I still haven't heard a good use for NFT's apart from investment/scams because the simple fact you still rely on some party honoring what the ledger says. Exactly the same thing as CSGO skins, just a better marketing move.

2011: Dammit Valve, who exactly asked for these tradeable hats? Keep games free of this crap!

2021: Praise Valve, the only big name keeping in-game-crap economies free of "blockchain" garbage and generally being the least awful one.

How low can the games industry sink?

I am often found defending Valve here on HN, so I'd just like to go on record that these skin and card trading markets are bad and Valve is bad for running them.

Can you articulate why?

Why do you think it is bad? Is the negative effect is on games, or Steam users?

> Is the negative effect is on games, or Steam users?

Yes.

Steam users most of all though because it exploits bad habits people have like gambling, collectionism, and completionism with all the ugliness that comes with them for the sake of profit.

That reads just like an xkcd comic :D

Games mimic life.

Some players like the ability to pursue luxury, express themselves and display status. Now Valve as an established player; market operator and sort of a financial institution of the "tradable hats" world plays conservative.

I disagree that this is a case of games mimicking life, but do agree with the underlying thesis that it’s coming from outside of Value.

Personally I think that this is a capitalism thing: any company that finds a way to sell this type of luxury suddenly finds out why other people are doing it ($$$$$) and it’s very hard to turn down a constant stream of money.

> no reason for it to be distributed

Many decisions are taken to increase market value. It makes sense a distributed ledger based on blockchain if that increases the shares value, but I guess that you mean that it does not improve the product at all. And I can't agree more that if anything it makes it worse.

It hinders the product. By controlling the ledger and being able to make changes, user submitted products are possible. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to respond to DMCA in the case of accidentally accepting copyrighted material

They could always block stuff they don't want from actually doing anything in the games and not host it, which would resolve that problem. (similar to how with IPFS public gateways often have blocklists of content they won't deliver, even if it is available in the IPFS network)

Now you have two ledgers, one of which isn’t distributed

Integration of user-generated content in ubisoft games will always have a centralized component, sure. They wouldn't dare having that unrestricted.

Yeah I guess my main point is all of this is fine and dandy and definitely works. But from a technical standpoint it’s just kinda stupid

So now you are maintaining an expensive and complex distributed database that duplicates the work that's already being done by a cheap and manageable internal database. For what benefit?

So you can say you have an NFT to offer. (I wish I was kidding here.)

And so they don't actually have to administer the marketplace. From their perspective it's just create a new skin and some NFTs for it, and release them into the wild.

Administering the marketplace is that part that actually makes money, though, because the house always gets a cut of the transactions (in service fees and transaction fees). That's been a lot of Valve's success in all the easy profit from the Steam Marketplace. If this is to increase shareholder value in Ubi long term, NFTs are ass backwards because they aren't long term revenue generating, but a marketplace they owned actually would be.

This is mostly because I have some friends very much into CSGO who also constantly make fun of NFTs, but my favorite thing about CSGO skins is that they are basically modern NFTs in every way except not being stored on a blockchain. Every skin has: The skin name, a random 0 - 1.0 damage value, and a skin offset (, optionally stattrak, attached stickers, etc). I'm not sure if the randomness guarantees uniqueness, but it's damn near close enough.

Not that distributed is even in the initialism of NFT, so I guess csgo skins are NFTs.

There is an insult in schools for kids who have default skins in games.

This is basically laughing at kid's being poor, can't stop it. But game producers are actively creating those environments where even if its just cosmetics you are still in a lower caste if not buying into cosmetics.

There are also pattens by Ubi or activation where you are places on server with higher rated player so when they dominate you their characters with weapons and skins are presented in a kill cam. That is to create subconscious idea of getting those to play better.

Thirdly on Valve and buying/selling items. Arcanas are skins in Dota. They are very expensive as its alternative character skin with new voice lines and visuals for skill. Nowdays arcanas are expensive, none tradable/marketable, and more importantly one time exclusive. Its massive FOMO pressure. Back in the day you could buy an arcana and while it costed you a bit you could sell it back at small % loss, not anymore.

Those companies are doing all of it cuz it makes them piles of cash, as those tactics while predatory - do work - and work very well.

Kids making fun of poorer kids for not having nicer cosmetics is absolutely nothing new… are we really going to pin the blame on this on the designer clothes brands, or the educational environment we are raising children?

I think people with nicer skins are more highly invested in the game both literally and figuratively, and thus are more likely to be better. I don’t think kill cams are the way valve is trying to convince you to buy skins.

And for your last point, yes that sucks but is that any worse than the default experience for literally every multiplayer video game on the market?

Why can't we blame both? Why must we encourage a society that values wasting money as a sign of status? The only people benefiting from this are the people selling the bullshit.

It’s not necessarily a sign of status, people think the cosmetics look nice. Why must I suffer a worse experience just because you think it’s a waste of money? It’s an M rated game, kids shouldn’t be playing it in the first place

>Kids making fun of poorer kids for not having nicer cosmetics is absolutely nothing new

I said it, but it seems like you are ok with it, be it physical or virtual goods?

> I think people with nicer skins are more highly invested in the game both literally and figuratively, and thus are more likely to be better. I don’t think kill cams are the way valve is trying to convince you to buy skins.

Please read what people write, instead of creating misconstrued replies. Its not valve, its patented method of placing you with HIGHER skill opponent who has skins/weapons that you dont have in order to heard you into conclusion that you should get skills.

> I don’t think kill cams are the way X company is trying to convince you to buy skins.

You don't have to think. They filled patent for this, how daft one need to get to clam they mean the opposite of what the patent they filled for. Like how do you arrive at that conclusion?! Honestly how?

This is not 100% effective method, but example of subtle emotional manipulation of vulnerable player-base, like kids/teens into spending money.

> And for your last point, yes that sucks but is that any worse than the default experience for literally every multiplayer video game on the market?

What? What is your point really? Shitty practices are ok as long everyone is using them? 'Mercury in your cereal?' - but every brand has them so that makes it ok.

> > Kids making fun of poorer kids for not having nicer cosmetics is absolutely nothing new

> I said it, but it seems like you are ok with it, be it physical or virtual goods?

This is absolutely not what I said and incredibly insulting of an implication. If you’re going to talk about misreading peoples comments, please practice what you preach. I will not be responding to the rest of this comment because you have convinced me you’re not approaching this dialogue in good faith.

I don't know much about CSGO, but it is similar to the marketplace for Dota 2 cosmetics. Based on that marketplace, I can see some flaws that the NFT landscape can improve.

> Skins are tradeable on the steam market which itself is a ledger, no reason for it to be distributed.

This is false in the Dota2 world. Some skins and cosmetics cannot be put on the market again or resold. Some people would see this constraint from a centralized force as a flaw.

> Skins are purely cosmetic and tied to a competitive game that many people tie their life to. Cosmetics of differing expense make sense, the better players show off their personality in the expense and style of their cosmetics

In decentralized gaming, anyone is free to take those assets and build a game off them. For example, if you had a certain rare skin, and someone made a dota fan game (or custom game if you are from the old WCIII days or custom lobby in current dota days), then you could enable certain functionality if they had the skin or NFT. There is a lot you can do from here that isn't purely cosmetic but also not P2W.

> additionally, because the ledger isn’t distributed, valve can actively change skins and fix mistakes to them. This allows for user submitted skins to even work, as they can respond to DMCA take downs

Excellent point on DMCA. On submitted skins, some people could see that as a limit. Who approves submissions (this was a big complaint in previous TIs)?

I am someone that has a lot of stuff on the Dota2 marketplace, and some of the centralized decisions have definitely left me with some bitterness. For example, I mentioned before that some cosmetics are not re-tradeable or ever seen again after some period of exclusivity. Except this rule was broken once where they allowed an Invoker cosmetic to come up again (the kid Persona), but for some reason didn't bring back [Dark Artistry] in an event where they put these skins together. I had the kid persona invoker item but never had the [Dark Artistry]. They essentially devalued my cosmetic, again somewhat arbitrarily.

> Some skins and cosmetics cannot be put on the market again or resold. Some people would see this constraint from a centralized force as a flaw.

But the skin owner can code pauses/restraints in the NFT smart contract, right? A decentralized market wouldn't change that.

> In decentralized gaming, anyone is free to take those assets and build a game off them. For example, if you had a certain rare skin, and someone made a dota fan game (or custom game if you are from the old WCIII days or custom lobby in current dota days), then you could enable certain functionality if they had the skin or NFT. There is a lot you can do from here that isn't purely cosmetic but also not P2W.

But for that you need to have free assets, to the point where someone else can build a game. And I bet in that case you don't need to own the skin, just load the asset in the game and that's it.

> But the skin owner can code pauses/restraints in the NFT smart contract, right? A decentralized market wouldn't change that.

I think it is fine if skin providers in a free marketplace can impose constraints on their NFTs. I think the problem is if someone can impose arbitrary constraints on all the assets at any time.

> But for that you need to have free assets, to the point where someone else can build a game. And I bet in that case you don't need to own the skin, just load the asset in the game and that's it.

Yes, you need certain amount of assets. I am not sure why you wouldn't need to own the skin. We already have verification for assets in centralized ledgers to exclusive access. I am saying a situation where I might give asset owners access to specific game functions if they own an asset from another game for example. This is pretty useful for RPG games (think branching paths in games like Mass Effect or other Bioware games)

> I am not sure why you wouldn't need to own the skin.

If the game maker doesn't want to restrict who uses the skin? And I guess that's the thing that would happen if someone makes a mod out of free assets.

> "In decentralized gaming, anyone is free to take those assets and build a game off them."

Certainly not. The assets are owned by the game developer. The NFT is just a receipt that you paid for them.

I suppose another developer can read that receipt and offer you some content in their game, but if that content looks anything like the original asset, they're liable to get sued for copyright infringement.

You are right; I was being loose with my language on assets and receipts. Thank you for the correction.

> but if that content looks anything like the original asset, they're liable to get sued for copyright infringement.

I am thinking something more along the lines of a game that supports in-game mods for it. There is nothing limiting you to use the original asset; you just need proof of ownership to give access to a different functionality. I have no idea how this would work across developers and with copyright, but there are real scenarios right now that would love to use proof of ownership or for mods.

You are seeing a potential future, and an exciting one at that. Unfortunately, there is nothing in what Ubisoft has announced that will help usher in that future.

> "Certainly not. The assets are owned by the game developer."

It may be the case for Ubisoft. However, some NTFs include the IP rights. For example, if you bought a Bored Ape NFT, you'd have the rights to use that Ape any way that you want. You can license it out for a Cartoon. Movie or Comic Book. Sell T-shirts, etc.

A license of mostly theoretical usefulness, considering what those apes look like.

You could purchase a custom illustration for $5 from Fiverr that would look better than a generated ape, be more suitable for your use case, and also comes with full rights.

> However, some NTFs include the IP rights.

Which surely exists separately from the blockchain in conventional contract law?

An NFT can't "include" IP rights. A notice on a website where you buy it might have a grant of contract rights.

Once again - the blockchain adds nothing or very little in return for a ton of technical complexity.

Valve relentlessly rent-seeks the secondary market, making it impossible to trade the skins for anything useful. They have gone out of their way to end any way to exchange them with any real world currency, because it then ends up being akin to gambling. Valve is almost a despot, exchanging skins as NFT would take these powers out of the game dev's hands, that's the whole point.

The only difference from what Valve is doing is that these are numbered and in limited quantity.

The numbered part is easy, but nobody guaranty that they will not issue more in the future after they reconsider something or something.

CSGO skins are limited in quantity as well. Some items are so rare they’re one of one, costing millions of dollars

Source: https://youtu.be/4nCt99ezhiA

Then it's the same. And the only bad thing is that it's Ubisoft and not the PC game market monopolist doing it.

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