It's seems like it's impossible to have avoided hearing about them, and if you have then I envy you. NFTs are "an important part of the future of our industry" according to EA. For Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, blockchain is a "revolution" in gaming. Non-fungible tokens, a blockchain-backed means of owning digital assets like ugly drawings of monkeys, are being talked up as the next big thing in gaming, but there's one problem: no one's been able to tell me what the Hell for?
For all the interest NFTs are currently generating on social media and in tech board rooms, it's hard to see a bright future for them in videogames. Most of what they promise for players is already possible using non-blockchain technology, and the one advantage they offer - that of portable digital ownership - is unimaginable in the current universe of triple-A games publishing.
If you want to see the future of NFTs in games, look no further than the fate of Valve's tragic collectible card game, Artifact. Based on characters and concepts from the massively popular Dota 2, Artifact was designed with help from Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield and used a unique business model: players could buy and sell cards outside of the game by using the Steam Marketplace. Rare and powerful cards would increase in value, but players were free to trade or sell cards as they saw fit.
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