Keep NFT out of FF14

[Mysticp]

I've read quite a few of the anti NFT posts and they all boil down to the following arguments:

1. NFT'S are bad because they will be used to monetize the game in greedy ways.
A) A company that is greedy and doesn't care about it's users will always find a way to work them over. Don't blame the technology for bad business practices. NFT's are just digital containers. I get the lack of trust in game companies but once again this has nothing to do with the tech. You can make the slippery slope argument here but that just makes you come across as a technophobe.

2. NFT's are bad because they have no value or are a scam
A) one of the worst arguments. An NFT is just a digital container. It can be used to contain any digital item. From art to identity documents. The value of an NFT depends if there is a market. This is true for any goods that exists in a market. Something having a market and being subject to supply and demand does not make it a scam, just a tradeable good like everything else.

3. NFT's are bad because people think they will get rich quick
A) This has nothing to do with NFT's. People think they can make it rich by selling any good that has a market. This has nothing to do with the underlying technology. People have free will to think what they want.

4. NFTs' will never work because SE won't release the copyright
A) If SE was interested in doing NFT's they would sit down with their lawyers and amend the EULA. NFT's would be done with their permission. Nobody has to release any copyright.

5. NFT's are bad because you don't own anything, the company does.
A) This is dependent on the blockchain used to create the NFT. If that NFT exists on chain and not a centralized SE server then you would have ownership once purchased. What's nuts about this argument is that people have no problem sinking $100's into mogstation that is centrally controlled. Suddenly ownership matters when it comes to NFT's. lol.

6. NFT's are bad because they are bad for the environment
A) Just no, does anybody really believe this?

[ItMe]

6. NFT's are bad because they are bad for the environment
A) Just no, does anybody really believe this?

Yes, because just like literally everything utilizing the blockchain it is fundamentally unsustainable.
You can try and dismiss the fact with a wave of your hand a a casual "does anybody really believe this," but that doesn't really address or disprove any aspect of the argument.

If you have data indicating NFTs don't guzzle unconscionable amounts of energy please for the love of God share it and end my nightmares.

[Mysticp]

Yes, because just like literally everything utilizing the blockchain it is fundamentally unsustainable.
You can try and dismiss the fact with a wave of your hand a a casual "does anybody really believe this," but that doesn't really address or disprove any aspect of the argument.

If you have data indicating NFTs don't guzzle unconscionable amounts of energy please for the love of God share it and end my nightmares.

What? Creating NFT's on the blockchain has zero environmental impact. Are you confusing minting NFT's with Crypto mining? They are not the same thing. Also, you say this while being able to play FFXIV on either PC or console which did an have environmental impact in their creation. Fake activism needs to stop.

[ItMe]

What? Creating NFT's on the blockchain has zero environmental impact. Are you confusing minting NFT's with Crypto mining? They are not the same thing.

In order to interact edit "blocks" on the blockchain (say, by buying/selling an NFT) the blockchain still asks computers to solve a series of intense puzzles that, while the computer chugs and struggles with them, take intense amounts of energy to solve.

Crypto currency might take more energy, but anything that uses the block chain must engage with this terribly wasteful process. One that has had its puzzle difficulty scale with improvements in computing power in order to keep the system secure, which in turn keeps the system from ever being sustainable.

[Mysticp]

In order to interact edit "blocks" on the blockchain (say, by buying/selling an NFT) the blockchain still asks computers to solve a series of intense puzzles that, while the computer chugs and struggles with them, take intense amounts of energy to solve.

Crypto currency might take more energy, but anything that uses the block chain must engage with this terribly wasteful process. One that has had its puzzle difficulty scale with improvements in computing power in order to keep the system secure, which in turn keeps the system from ever being sustainable.

This is incorrect. Referencing items on the blockchain does not require you to solve blocks. You are confusing mining with NFT creation. There are also on chain NFT's and off chain NFT's. Additionally, not every NFT is done on a proof of work chain. I'm sorry but none of this is correct and your GPU has had far more environmental impact than any NFT ever will.

[ItMe]

This is incorrect. Referencing items on the blockchain does not require you to solve blocks. You are confusing mining with NFT creation. There are also on chain NFT's and off chain NFT's. Additionally, not every NFT is done on a proof of work chain. I'm sorry but none of this is correct and your GPU has had far more environmental impact than any NFT ever will.

That's interesting and almost a relief.
It's possible I'm misunderstanding how NFTs create their carbon footprint, but they are most definitely doing so.
Everything I've read on the matter agrees they are an ecological nightmare.

Again, if you have contrary data please share it with me.

[Mysticp]

That's interesting and almost a relief.
It's possible I'm misunderstanding how NFTs create their carbon footprint, but they are most definitely doing so.
Everything I've read on the matter agrees they are an ecological nightmare.

Again, if you have contrary data please share it with me.

No worries, to be honest it is all very complicated and depends on the chain. Most NFT's are on ETH which is proof of work at the moment but transitioning to proof of stake later this year. This will significantly reduce the very small impact nft's have even further. I believe the Verge did an article on this not too far back.

[Kakure]

NFT'S are bad because they will be used to monetize the game in greedy ways.
A) A company that is greedy and doesn't care about it's users will always find a way to work them over. Don't blame the technology for bad business practices. NFT's are just digital containers. I get the lack of trust in game companies but once again this has nothing to do with the tech. You can make the slippery slope argument here but that just makes you come across as a technophobe.

NFTs are just digital containers the same way that meme is just a generic term for cultural mimicry and Woodstock is just a town in New York.

NFTs are not some promising technology that just happens to be involved with speculative bubble investing somewhere *waves hand airily* over there. Silly people handing away their money in an orgy of overheated speculative investing is the whole point. That is the only reason we are having this conversation. Were none of that taking place, no serious person thinks that the president of SE would have released a letter crowing about the potential of some technology no one even seems to be able to come up with a real use for (in the gaming space, at least).

As I said before, you are the ONLY person here talking about NFTs as value-neutral containers. Whether that is an act of bad faith or you really just don't get what everyone else is talking about, this whole kerfuffle is about gaming companies jumping on the NFT bandwagon because they see people paying obscene sums of money for NFTs of digital art or video clips and want to cash in themselves. Their frenzied efforts to make NFT gaming a real thing is not a downstream indicator of corporate greed or malintention: it IS the scam.

If we stopped televangelists from preying on vulnerable older people the way they do, they might very well find a new con. That's not a valid defense of the con in front of us and it is certainly not reassuring to all of us who are going to be impacted by it even if we ourselves recognize it for the scam it is.

NFT's are bad because they have no value or are a scam
A) one of the worst arguments. An NFT is just a digital container. It can be used to contain any digital item. From art to identity documents. The value of an NFT depends if there is a market. This is true for any goods that exists in a market. Something having a market and being subject to supply and demand does not make it a scam, just a tradeable good like everything else.

That's utter nonsense. "Markets determine value" is the Microecon 101 answer, but in the real world we have copious referents against which we can judge the value of a thing. I can say with utter certainty that used tin cans are effectively worthless. If A stoops down and picks one up and says to B "I'll trade you this used tin can for your car," I can say without hesitation that it's a bad deal because one of those things has value and the other doesn't. If B agrees to the trade, it doesn't mean that used tin can is now worth a car. It means that B is a numskull who traded a thing with value for a thing without value.

And when someone pays millions of dollars for an NFT of a tweet, we're very much in "I'll give you a used tin can for your car" territory.

The good news for anyone who just Googled "What is an NFT?" and is despairing for humanity is that the vast majority of people purchasing NFTs are speculative investors. They understand that it's a scam, but they believe their investment will appreciate and they are gambling that they can get out before the bubble bursts. Even someone who says they think that an NFT of a tweet or a clipart rock has real value is probably lying, either in service of the scam (speculators have to hype their speculative investments to new speculators, after all, or the whole thing will just collapse) or because they are laundering money.

As for the one person somewhere who both has access to half a million dollars AND thinks that an NFT of an ape sketch is worth that... I guess that's just financial Darwinism or something. Every now and again the universe gives birth to a three-legged gazelle who is sexually attracted to lions. It's disturbing to watch, but maybe NFTs are just nature's way of ensuring the orderly transfer of money away from those who are dispositionally unfit to possess money.

NFTs' will never work because SE won't release the copyright
A) If SE was interested in doing NFT's they would sit down with their lawyers and amend the EULA. NFT's would be done with their permission. Nobody has to release any copyright.

Agreed. That wasn't ever an argument against NFTs though. It was people pointing out that your framing of NFTs as a way to free us from the way FFXIV works by giving us full legal ownership over our items just... isn't how any of this actually works.

NFT's are bad because you don't own anything, the company does.
A) This is dependent on the blockchain used to create the NFT. If that NFT exists on chain and not a centralized SE server then you would have ownership once purchased. What's nuts about this argument is that people have no problem sinking $100's into mogstation that is centrally controlled. Suddenly ownership matters when it comes to NFT's. lol.

As with the above, I think what you are referring to here was a response to your argument and not an independent attack on NFTs. No one is really saying that NFTs are bad because you don't own them. They're just saying that "NFTs give you real ownership in your items" isn't a valid argument for NFTs in games.

NFT's are bad because they are bad for the environment
A) Just no, does anybody really believe this?

Others have done an admirable job on this one, but let me put this in very simple terms:

Right now, there is some amount of processing involved when you do stuff with your items in FFXIV. If each of those items also had an external certificate of dubious worth, checking and updating that certificate would require more processing than is involved now. If every item in every game were an NFT, there would be lots and LOTS and LOTS of extraneous processing.

That's not to say that everything that consumes energy is bad. But it is a pretty solid reason to keep NFTs way the hell away from gaming if there's no benefit at all to including them.

[Mysticp]

NFTs are just digital containers the same way that meme

As I said before, you are the ONLY person here talking about NFTs as value-neutral containers. Whether that is an act of bad faith or you really just don't get what everyone else is talking about, this whole kerfuffle is about gaming companies jumping on the NFT bandwagon because they see people paying obscene sums of money for NFTs of digital art or video clips and want to cash in themselves. Their frenzied efforts to make NFT gaming a real thing is not a downstream indicator of corporate greed or malintention: it IS the scam.

That's utter nonsense. "Markets determine value" is the Microecon 101 answer, but in the real world we have copious referents against which we can judge the value of a thing. I can say with utter certainty that used tin cans are effectively worthless. If A stoops down and picks one up and says to B "I'll trade you this used tin can for your car," I can say without hesitation that it's a bad deal because one of those things has value and the other doesn't. If B agrees to the trade, it doesn't mean that used tin can is now worth a car. It means that B is a numskull who traded a thing with value for a thing without value.

And when someone pays millions of dollars for an NFT of a tweet, we're very much in "I'll give you a used tin can for your car" territory.

I get that people are concerned about the business practices that can be taken. I think people have every right to be skeptical however this has nothing do with the underlying technology of NFT's. If any company puts in practices that negatively impact gameplay or are unjust then defy them with your wallet. Nobody is making you buy anything and not buying sends a clear message.

As to your example between person A and person B with the tin cans: I see nothing wrong. If someone came up to me with a tin can and wanted me to buy it and I had no need for a tin can I would tell them to go away. If I for some reason wanted a tin can I would make them an offer. It's very curious that people think that just because you see no use in something that it's a scam. People really don't understand what the word scam means. If I wanted a tin can I as the buyer can set the price if there is no other demand. I can pay $1 for my tin can or $10 million. Either way, nobody got scammed. If I offered $1 for a tin can and got a cardboard cut out of a can then that would be a scam as I did not get what I wanted. Also, speculative investments are not a scam. I am again just purchasing a good with a fluctuating value. Most people try to make a profit on any item that they sell however sometimes you take a loss. This is life. Nobody got scammed because the value of something moved in the wrong direction.

[ApolloGenX]

I get that people are concerned about the business practices that can be taken. I think people have every right to be skeptical however this has nothing do with the underlying technology of NFT's. If any company puts in practices that negatively impact gameplay or are unjust then defy them with your wallet. Nobody is making you buy anything and not buying sends a clear message.

As to your example between person A and person B with the tin cans: I see nothing wrong. If someone came up to me with a tin can and wanted me to buy it and I had no need for a tin can I would tell them to go away. If I for some reason wanted a tin can I would make them an offer. It's very curious that people think that just because you see no use in something that it's a scam. People really don't understand what the word scam means. If I wanted a tin can I as the buyer can set the price if there is no other demand. I can pay $1 for my tin can or $10 million. Either way, nobody got scammed. If I offered $1 for a tin can and got a cardboard cut out of a can then that would be a scam as I did not get what I wanted. Also, speculative investments are not a scam. I am again just purchasing a good with a fluctuating value. Most people try to make a profit on any item that they sell however sometimes you take a loss. This is life. Nobody got scammed because the value of something moved in the wrong direction.

There is a difference between arguing against NFTs as a valid concept... and saying this game is not an appropriate avenue. I have no problems with NFTs... just not in this game.

Take for example your tin can. Ok, a tin can isn't a scam, sure.... but that doesn't mean it can't be used in one. You are assuming symmetry of information. That is not the case with NFTs.

For example: (Not to give ideas)... but kids at school play FFXIV. Ok, let's say one of them gets some kind of NFT. Great. Now the kid gets tired of it... and instead hypes it to his friend... or maybe someone he isn't friends with... maybe even puts social pressure on him/her and casts them as a "newb" or something worse (cause kids, right?)... so the kid asks his parents for the NFT for his bday. Kid one agrees to sell it to him for a huge profit. Parents don't know what the heck it is, it's an in game item that little kid says is so important... sure let's get it for him. (Who says THEY know the difference between this and the Mog Store?)

That's a potential scam or at least pump n dump scheme that could easily happen. This is why I have ethical issues with it in THIS context.

This is an avenue of trading that is not so different from speculative markets and the lack of information/education around it leaves it open to bad actors.

I am all for investing and teaching kids and adults about responsible investment. Mixing investment rules with entertainment and speculative values is unethical in this avenue, imo.