Since is in vogue right now I put a video link to NFTs integration in Unity:
and video related search unity + nft
NFTs: energy wasting, copyright busting, arguably valueless tokens
lets not connect to Unity
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Sod that, lets integrate NFT’s with lootboxes and microtransactions, tied to the cost of gamestop shares.
Or have EA already patented that?
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How does an NFT waste energy? It’s generally not something that has a proof of work requirement? Minting will typically take much less computational power than what you just spent looking at this website. In a modern protocol like Immutable X the work to confirm ownership is exceedingly small and it doesn’t need to be done all the time (in gaming typically when you start a gaming session). I suppose technically it takes more cycles than writing to a DB, but in the scope of everything else going on in a game this is very small.
NFTs are arguably valueless, for sure, but so is a set of pokemon cards (its just paper), or a rich high-level character in an MMO. Yet people still pay for these things.
In gaming NFTs give players a way to own things outside of the control of the games publisher. The primary benefit is that they can trade it however they like, including for real world money. Players (at least the small but growing subset familiar with crypto) seem to like this.
Even if the game dies its possible that these tokens will live on, that could simply be as a tradable much like a baseball card, but the richer possibilities open up when others build games using the same token. If a popular but no longer profitable game dies, it is entirely possible that a new studio or a collective of the players could ressurect a version of the game (private server), a clone of the game, or a different but similar game, where players would have all the same items they had in the original game.
Finally if you are building games, like presumably the majority of people here, the crypto market is a huge potential source of funding and NFTs are the most logical/natural way to add crypto in to a game. There’s a bunch of cashed up young people looking for things to do with their ETH, as well as a large set of insutional investors looking to find the next big thing. So lets connect it to Unity as much as we can!
@AlanMattano thanks for the video, nice work!
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I’m sure this crypto money laundering/pyramid scheme hybrid will be different from all the others.
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That makes it different from a federal reserve dollar in what manner? Money tokens have always properly been an exchange of energy expended. In this regards Bitcoin is a more fungible commodity than a FRN as it takes the same energy to create a one dollar denomination as a 100 dollar denominated FRN. The FRN is a definite pyramid scheme and this is well documented. If you make the claim Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme you should have to back that with citations. Note…snark will not qualify as a citation.
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NFTs have been, near exclusively, used to shift money around specifically because of their ability to have a valued token exchanged with no practical means of tracking. There are already numerous examples of this happening to artists who are hopping on the NFT art train and we’re even seeing people tokenize existing pieces to control distribution even if they don’t own it. All of these are things that need to be addressed with NFTs and there’s no real approach to that being done at all.
Then there are the environmental issues, because NFT really doesn’t work unless it’s attached to a currency, and that means that you’re bound to currencies people use (all currently proof of work with proof of stake “coming soon” for the last several years), or you’re going to use an obscure currency (leaving your market open to easy manipulation), or you’re going to have to do an ICO (at which point you are better off using a centralized service), or you’re going to have to use an entire controlled market for the underlying NFT system (at which point you, in fact, have a centralized system).
NFTs are a solution to an invented problem being sold by the people who stand to benefit the most off the idea and tech heads are jumping on board because it’s a shiny new tech and it’s like everyone just found a new API that looks neat but has no practical application.
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I also share many of the ideas behind your premises. The trade in crap modern art worse than the worst programmers art for millions is obviously token exchange for a drug deal or human trafficking pay down. However…in a digital medium where many incredibly beautiful artworks solely exist having that NFT alongside the digital work as granted to THE CREATOR of that work gives it provenance much as an Escher print from the original copperplate is worth more than a printing of an Escher print. So there is that side to it in that one of the digitally creative geniuses can release work, folks can have it as a desktop etc. but the original digital certificate for the non replicated - prior to the first replication - is attached to a specific originating set of bits and bytes. That becomes worth what the market will bear and whatever privileges that can provide.
Environmental issues? pfftt. Do you have any idea how many ergs it takes to print a palette of FRN’s…or keep PornHub or Twitter running for 24 hours…a rhetorical aside. I live in the woods. If you don’t beat it back daily it will swallow the roads and house in months.
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The ability to assert ownership without relying on a central authority is useful. If you don’t agree then there’s no further conversation to be had.
Here’s an example to ponder, imagine for example the domain name system, except instead of relying on a central authority you rely on an NFT. It exhibits all of the same behaviours without requiring a controlling body. If thats not a move to a more free internet then I don’t know what is.
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Been looking into the idea of adding NFT to my game but I can’t get over the feeling from what I have read that on the whole it is seen as a some what iffy and shadey thing. Are there any positive articles out there to read about this? Does Unity have any ideas on the subject?
I never really understand the point, like, you can mint as many NFTs against the same object as you like - sort of removes the point in my opinion.
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You can’t assert anything, that has been one of the exact problems. Not only that, but there is no “free internet” in this situation, and blockchain has conceptually proven itself to be a poor solution to any of this because of its god awful performance to the point it is part of the environmental concern.
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I imagine since it is a representation of work and value of the work involved as dictated by the marketplace that as with any representational currency that points at a fixed quantity commodity that it would water the value down. The environmental concerns are broached by the same clowns that control the fiat printing presses and processing said tree, mineral and hydrocarbon based notes of debt. Go figure.
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Yeah, so obviously the best option is to add more systems where a single transaction has the same environmental impact as idling a car for 40 years.
Crypto mining is the most cost effective method to heat your home ever created though… 
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Prove it. For example, an 8 cylinder, 4 cylinder, rotary engine, it’s displacement and idle speed, year, make and model, diesel, gas or electric? How much does your development card use in watt-hours per year?
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In a gaming context you can’t. Minting a new token has no value if the game doesn’t honor it.
Go have a look at Gods Unchained if you want to see the idea in a released game: https://godsunchained.com/
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Layer 2 solutions such as Immutable X have comparable computing costs to traditional solutions such as writing to a database, have zero gas cost for most frequent operations, and are provably as secure and decentralised as the underlying chain (etherium in their case).
As to asserting ownership you can assert ownership of a token. There are no problems with that. You seem to be focusing on the idea of ownership of a digital image, where provenance is the ony thing that matters, and it can get pretty tricky, but aren’t we are talking here about using NFTs for games?
The game client/server absolutely can assert that an NFT was minted by itself and is now owned by some other wallet attached to a player account.
This whole argument that X was used for something bad being justification that X is inherently bad is kind of silly. Its new technology, it has issues to work through, it may not revolutionize anything.
But lets be pragmatic, right now, it is an extremely good way to get funding for, and build a community for, your game.
From an idea in October, to an internal POC in November (I did the POC in Unity … but we have now moved to Unreal) to a private fund raising round in Feb we raised 5 million dollars and now have 10000 people on our discord channel. Our public sales is expected to raise a lot more.
If using NFTs instead of a DB for your stats/items can get you here, isn’t it worth a shot?
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The only thing that this NFT gets you is provenance, which is effectively the ability to say that you own the original.
But is this any different to owning the Mona Lisa? It’s not like you can’t create a recreation that is indiscernible from the original painting (at least to the naked eye), albeit with a little more effort than copying a digital image.
To be clear, personally I don’t think there is much utility in the art space… but some people like to be able to know/say they own the original…
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PS Excuse multiple posts, in my defence they were on different topics, but I will stop now!