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Penny Arcade - Comic - Certainty

DogDog Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
edited February 2022 in The Penny Arcade Hub
imagePenny Arcade - Comic - Certainty

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

Read the full story here

Unknown User on

Posts

  • noxumbranoxumbra Registered User regular
    What? I didn't hear about this.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited February 2022
    What's funny is that this boils down to someone else scamming people instead of the legit scammers who are also looking into scamming people with the same thing.

    dennis on
  • zepherinzepherin Russian warship, go fuck yourself Registered User regular
    They are really on the orbital weapons platforms lately. Orbital space rays, nuking from Orbit...What are they trying to tell us?

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    I'm still waiting for someone to explain the use or value of an NFT to me as anything other than "If you buy this from me for a lot of money then someone might buy it from you for even more."

    I mean I know that the various governments around the world created hojillions of currency units in the last couple of years and people with a lot of 'em are looking for something to buy with them, but is there really nothing more to these things than being a thing you can buy so you've bought them?

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited February 2022
    V1m wrote: »
    I'm still waiting for someone to explain the use or value of an NFT to me as anything other than "If you buy this from me for a lot of money then someone might buy it from you for even more."

    That's where the logic ends. I mean, we do already have the example of art as a thing that's mostly that. Okay, a lot of those paintings are great works but area they really 100,000 times as good as others?

    Of course, the things about those high dollar art auctions are mostly scams, too. Starting to see a real pattern here.

    dennis on
  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    It's like this bullshit is coming full circle, as one of the earliest crypto exchanges was originally intended to be a Magic: the Gathering Online card trading site

    Wiki link for those too young to remember Mtgox

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • CowboyCaseCowboyCase Registered User regular
    There's probably a business case for WotC to sell MtG NFTs. I'm not saying it's environmentally or even ethically sound, but if they sold a Black Lotus NFT, they'd probably find a buyer.

    I don't think there's a business case for WotC to try to build a NFT-based game format. There's a reason companies have been moving away from P2W based models. Nobody would be willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a crappy deck just to job for the people who spent thousands on a good one.

    But there's absolutely not a business case for WotC to let someone ELSE sell their intellectual property as NFTs, and I find it frankly bewildering that these clowns don't seem to understand that.

  • zepherinzepherin Russian warship, go fuck yourself Registered User regular
    V1m wrote: »
    I'm still waiting for someone to explain the use or value of an NFT to me as anything other than "If you buy this from me for a lot of money then someone might buy it from you for even more."

    I mean I know that the various governments around the world created hojillions of currency units in the last couple of years and people with a lot of 'em are looking for something to buy with them, but is there really nothing more to these things than being a thing you can buy so you've bought them?

    PVP has the best quote on NFTs. You sell idiots nothing give them shitty art as a receipt.

  • ZobirisZobiris NS, CanadaRegistered User regular
    Last panel Gabe is literally "guy trying to explain how he lost his kid's college-fund-apes to his wife".

  • TofystedethTofystedeth Registered User regular
    zepherin wrote: »
    V1m wrote: »
    I'm still waiting for someone to explain the use or value of an NFT to me as anything other than "If you buy this from me for a lot of money then someone might buy it from you for even more."

    I mean I know that the various governments around the world created hojillions of currency units in the last couple of years and people with a lot of 'em are looking for something to buy with them, but is there really nothing more to these things than being a thing you can buy so you've bought them?

    PVP has the best quote on NFTs. You sell idiots nothing give them shitty art as a receipt.

    Yup, ultimately owning an NFT is just proof that you purchased that NFT. The content of it may or may not continue to exist at any moment.

    steam_sig.png
  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    edited February 2022
    A description I saw (and subsequently repeated in a work meeting this week) is that you're buying some coordinates on Google Street View because you like the view of the house

    You don't own the house you're looking at, anybody else could also see the house for free, and the actual owner of the house could knock it down and replace it with a fat rendering plant and you can't do anything about it, enjoy your fat rendering plant view

    Rhesus Positive on
    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    V1m wrote: »
    I'm still waiting for someone to explain the use or value of an NFT to me as anything other than "If you buy this from me for a lot of money then someone might buy it from you for even more."

    I mean I know that the various governments around the world created hojillions of currency units in the last couple of years and people with a lot of 'em are looking for something to buy with them, but is there really nothing more to these things than being a thing you can buy so you've bought them?

    No, you got it in one. NFTs are an unambiguous pyramid scheme.

    Also I came to this thread to say I adore that Tycho used an obscure line from Pride and Prejudice in his news post.

    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • GrendusGrendus Registered User regular
    V1m wrote: »
    I'm still waiting for someone to explain the use or value of an NFT to me as anything other than "If you buy this from me for a lot of money then someone might buy it from you for even more."

    In theory, an NFT allows you to resell an authentic copy of a limited supply digital good in a third party marketplace. For example, let's say that Ticketmaster wanted to stop people from selling fake tickets to events, but didn't want to crack down on scalpers and didn't want a cut of their resale (so you know, fake hypothetical time), so instead of getting a QR code in an email, buying the ticket assigned a "Concert Ticket NFT" to your account on the block chain. This would allow you to resell the ticket to other people without Ticketmaster's involvement, but they could still be confident that the NFT ticket you sold them was authentic and would get them into the event.

    That's the actual problem with NFT's. The whole point of blockchain technology is to have an official record of what happened without needing a central arbiter to keep a record of what happened. There's absolutely no difference between an NFT of a Black Lotus you can use to play MTG Online Crypto Edition, and a database entry saying you own a Black Lotus in MTG Online Regular Edition. You own exactly the same thing in both cases - a digital code that does a certain thing in a video game. The only advantage would be if those NFT's were tied to a public block chain so you could trade that card without WotC getting a cut of the sale but still use it in their official game by linking your account with your NFT's to their game. Put another way, the only advantage of adding blockchain to a game is to take control away from the company, which is not in their interest.

    The reason companies are adding NFT's to their games right now is venture capitalists with more money than sense are throwing money at anything that even vaguely looks like crypto/NFTs. These guys know nothing about technology or what is actually going on, only that people are "paying" millions for BoredApe NFTs and they want in on that action. And when it all comes crashing down... I expect it to be really ugly. Like, 2008 ugly, maybe worse... we're a lot more politically unstable than we were in 2008 after COVID.

  • palidine40palidine40 Registered User regular
    This is a place i'm glad someone tried to go with NFT, because NFT is the perfect place for logic and the idiocy of law to collide.

  • ShowsniShowsni Registered User regular
    edited February 2022
    What this white paper seems to boil down to is "I'm running an MtG league. If you want to play in it, you'll need to pay me money for each card in your deck, at a variable rate per card (with more popular cards (Island, say) costing more!). What? No, there are no prizes for this league. Playing is its own reward."

    It seems the the author could achieve what they actually want in terms of a format by avoiding crypto entirely, and running a Vintage Rotisserie Auction Draft, i.e. with bidding on each card instead of picking in order. Each person who joins the tournament is given, say, 1000 chips. Then each Vintage legal card is auctioned off for the chips. Then people build decks with the cards they won at auction, and play a tournament (Swiss cut to top 8 or what have you). That would achieve their goals of forcing people to build diverse decks using lesser used cards, with more powerful cards still being available, but "costing" comparatively more.

    Showsni on
  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    So to summarise: NFTs so far have only been used for blatant scams, for which they're absolutely perfect - but they do have some theoretical use cases which are largely unrealised because there are much easier and simpler ways of doing all of them?

    This is kind of like a playground drug dealer saying that it's OK because he's teaching the children maths skills.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    V1m wrote: »
    This is kind of like a playground drug dealer saying that it's OK because he's teaching the children maths skills.

    Cocaine is the only way we're going to get Americans to learn the metric system

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • islingtonislington Registered User regular
    Grendus wrote: »
    That's the actual problem with NFT's. The whole point of blockchain technology is to have an official record of what happened without needing a central arbiter to keep a record of what happened. There's absolutely no difference between an NFT of a Black Lotus you can use to play MTG Online Crypto Edition, and a database entry saying you own a Black Lotus in MTG Online Regular Edition. You own exactly the same thing in both cases - a digital code that does a certain thing in a video game. The only advantage would be if those NFT's were tied to a public block chain so you could trade that card without WotC getting a cut of the sale but still use it in their official game by linking your account with your NFT's to their game. Put another way, the only advantage of adding blockchain to a game is to take control away from the company, which is not in their interest.

    You hit the nail on the head, but also slightly missed the point here. This is precisely why a company like UbiSoft wants to make NFT's part of the game. It all depends on what block chain the transaction is being done on, and whose in control of the block chain, If Ubi Controls the chain, then they can take a cut of every transaction ad infinium. Selling Diablo pants or WoW accounts on ebay cuts Blizzard right out of the loop, But if all equipment or accounts in an online game are managed on a blockchain structure, then all transaction MUST happen through the chain, and are subject to whims of the administrators of said chain. needless to say, this will not be a boon to consumers, to misquote our illustrious hosts "This is a digital papacy buying its own indulgences"

  • ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular
    islington wrote: »
    Grendus wrote: »
    That's the actual problem with NFT's. The whole point of blockchain technology is to have an official record of what happened without needing a central arbiter to keep a record of what happened. There's absolutely no difference between an NFT of a Black Lotus you can use to play MTG Online Crypto Edition, and a database entry saying you own a Black Lotus in MTG Online Regular Edition. You own exactly the same thing in both cases - a digital code that does a certain thing in a video game. The only advantage would be if those NFT's were tied to a public block chain so you could trade that card without WotC getting a cut of the sale but still use it in their official game by linking your account with your NFT's to their game. Put another way, the only advantage of adding blockchain to a game is to take control away from the company, which is not in their interest.

    You hit the nail on the head, but also slightly missed the point here. This is precisely why a company like UbiSoft wants to make NFT's part of the game. It all depends on what block chain the transaction is being done on, and whose in control of the block chain, If Ubi Controls the chain, then they can take a cut of every transaction ad infinium. Selling Diablo pants or WoW accounts on ebay cuts Blizzard right out of the loop, But if all equipment or accounts in an online game are managed on a blockchain structure, then all transaction MUST happen through the chain, and are subject to whims of the administrators of said chain. needless to say, this will not be a boon to consumers, to misquote our illustrious hosts "This is a digital papacy buying its own indulgences"

    They don’t need a blockchain to do that though.

    Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    islington wrote: »
    Grendus wrote: »
    That's the actual problem with NFT's. The whole point of blockchain technology is to have an official record of what happened without needing a central arbiter to keep a record of what happened. There's absolutely no difference between an NFT of a Black Lotus you can use to play MTG Online Crypto Edition, and a database entry saying you own a Black Lotus in MTG Online Regular Edition. You own exactly the same thing in both cases - a digital code that does a certain thing in a video game. The only advantage would be if those NFT's were tied to a public block chain so you could trade that card without WotC getting a cut of the sale but still use it in their official game by linking your account with your NFT's to their game. Put another way, the only advantage of adding blockchain to a game is to take control away from the company, which is not in their interest.

    You hit the nail on the head, but also slightly missed the point here. This is precisely why a company like UbiSoft wants to make NFT's part of the game. It all depends on what block chain the transaction is being done on, and whose in control of the block chain, If Ubi Controls the chain, then they can take a cut of every transaction ad infinium. Selling Diablo pants or WoW accounts on ebay cuts Blizzard right out of the loop, But if all equipment or accounts in an online game are managed on a blockchain structure, then all transaction MUST happen through the chain, and are subject to whims of the administrators of said chain. needless to say, this will not be a boon to consumers, to misquote our illustrious hosts "This is a digital papacy buying its own indulgences"

    They don’t need a blockchain to do that though.

    It's a convenient work-around of the doctrine of First Sale.

    Oh look, a way to "sell" something to someone without ever letting them actually own it. So that's the problem NFTs solve.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    Games companies have been doing that for years

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
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