Hello,

I have been researching about blockchains and stuff and it all seems like a big scam. It’s not sustainable and can be replaced by a simple database.

is there any legitimate use cases of blockchains or it is all just a big scam?

  • papertowels@mander.xyz
    11·
    26 days ago

    Before we start blaming a digital trading card game for the sins of capitalism, let’s both acknowledge that “artificial scarcity” is built into games. Mario suffered “artificial scarcity” when he didn’t have a red mushroom at the ready. Anything that requires “unlocking” can be argued to be artifical scarcity. At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter because these are aspects of a game and not real world resources.

    Every digital TCG - Hearthstone, mtg arena, etc. all already have artificial scarcity.

    This is just allowing for you, as a player, to actually have a semblance of ownership over the digital goods you obtain, independent of the company you purchased it from, which is far more than any other digital platform will allow for.

      • papertowels@mander.xyz
        11·
        25 days ago

        It sounds like your issues are with that of games in general, which is outside of the scope of this discussion, so I don’t have much to say in response. Hope you have a good day!

              • papertowels@mander.xyz
                11·
                23 days ago

                And is “releasing it on consoles” not a monetization scheme? If they didn’t give it away from free, they…sold it for money, which means it’s a monetization scheme.

                What’s worse is that on consoles it’s simply a digital copy of a file being made - at least arcades needed maintenance, justifying an ongoing cost. Arguably your example of games being released on consoles is an even worse example of artificial scarcity - why should they charge for a digital copy of a game that costs them nothing to copy? Is that not a textbook example of “artificial scarcity”?

                Except microtransactions are much worse because they do not enable a secondary economy like arcades did.

                Are we in agreement that digital cards as NFTs does enable a secondary market, especially when compared to digital cards not associated with NFTs?

                  • papertowels@mander.xyz
                    11·
                    23 days ago

                    it artificially creates a psudo-second market by introducing scarcity.

                    So we are in agreement that the Blockchain aspect of the game creates a secondary market, but via artificial scarcity, which is the big bad boogie man of your entire argument. Makes sense to me. We’re once again circled back to “most popular digital games have artificial scarcity built in, this is not unique to a game that is a legitimate use of Blockchain, which OP asked about, so it seems like your beef is with most digital games in general”

                    While you’re taking a breath between each vitriolic insult you throw out, did you give any thoughts to the idea that the positive example you brought up, mortal Kombat being released on consoles, is also a form of artificial scarcity, since they’re charging relatively high prices for a mere copy of the code?