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?
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.
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.
Crypto in general feels like MMM scams but for men.
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
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.
Owning the NFT means nothing since you don't own the game in which they're used.
Now they get to say they're using NFTs in their press.
And they've even launched this on an older game, so they can test if it results in increased engagement or revenue.
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.
Are you seriously saying that their motivation was that it's less work?
Users may consider this a bug, but from Ubisoft's side it's less responsibility.