A recent study on video game development trends shows that there is still skepticism surrounding NFTs. Speaking to software developer Perforce about technologies that could affect game development, a majority of developers remain skeptical that non-fungible tokens could bring any benefit to the industry.
Of the 300 developers surveyed by Perforce, 49 percent said NFTs would have either minimal impact on games or no impact at all.
NFTs have been highly controversial since they were first announced. While companies like Square Enix and Sega have shown clear interest in the technology, developers don’t seem to share that sentiment for the most part. Game Developers Conference released a report in January that found that 72 percent of companies had no interest at all in cryptocurrency and 70 percent had no interest in NFTs.
Perforce chief technology officer Brad Hart told Game Developer that this data is fueled by the fact that game developers can already implement the most common use cases of NFTs without using blockchain technology. “It’s like any blockchain project trying to have relevance just because it’s ‘blockchain,’ he noted.
“Unless it innovatively solves a unique problem, NFTs are of minimal value in the real world.”
An anonymous developer told Perforce that NFTs still look like a “grift.” Another argued that the technology is effectively rendered useless because a centralized database can already do what NFTs claim to do.
“If Microsoft wants people to buy a Master Chief helmet in Halo and use it in Duty, they just need to link it to a player’s Xbox or Game Pass account; they don’t need to involve the blockchain,” the developer wrote. They added that after the “gold rush” of NFTs comes to an end, they will become digital collectibles. “A niche item for a niche market.”
Last month, Mojang even went so far as to completely ban NFTs and blockchain Minecraft. The developer wrote that the use of NFTs and blockchain technology “creates digital ownership based on scarcity and exclusion, which does not correspond to Minecraft values of creative inclusion and play together.”
The stigma surrounding NFTs has become so strong that PlayStation’s recent loyalty program that rewards players “digital collectibles” went out of its way to emphasize that said collectibles are not blockchain-adjacent.
What is all this new technology for? Developers not sure
Discussion about NFTs often leads to talk about the metaverse, and developers are unsure about that at the same time. Perforce’s research shows that 37 percent of developers are confident that the metaverse will have an impact. 39 percent think there won’t be much more to come of metaverse-style digital worlds.
Should the metaverse come to fruition the way so many hope, one developer thinks it will just come down to “a lot of new, ephemeral, low-quality games. But all the good things made possible by the ‘metaverse’ have already been done.” done in older games.”
That data shows that while developers aren’t entirely thrilled with the idea of the metaverse, they are at least less hostile to it than NFTs. Hart thinks that’s because the metaverse “promises an experience and technology more in line with what games are trying to deliver.”
“Game development is all about immersive, entertaining experiences and the metaverse hopes to take that to the next level,” he added. “There’s still some skepticism about whether the metaverse will provide that level of experience, but at least the vision is aligned with the gaming community.”
Conversely, developers have a more positive perception of virtual and augmented reality. 79 percent of respondents said AR and VR will be important for games by 2025.
Speaking specifically of VR, developer Elijah McElwian said the technology will grow into blackout games within a decade. “[VR] will extend beyond the confines of reality, not just a virtual one,” he said. “It will take us to a whole new world and create new aspects of life.”
But first, both VR and AR need to be more accessible to a wider audience rather than being a luxury item. A proponent of AR thinks that if AR is to get big, the technology must first be there to support it. And that, the developer said, requires AR to “bleed” into other industries.
Game Developer and GDC are sister organizations under Informa Tech.
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