Vine's Creator Is Now Working On NFT Blockchain Video Games (theverge.com) 18
Dom Hofmann, one of Vine's founders, has a new project called Supdrive. He calls it an "on-chain fantasy game console" that plays classic-style games with NFTs acting as a sort of virtual cartridge. The Verge reports: In a Discord set up for Supdrive, Hofmann wrote that the games will be NFTs, running on virtual firmware. The fact that games will be released as NFTs means that there will only be so many "editions" or copies available. Hofmann also says that each copy of a given game will be unique, with players getting different color palettes, difficulty levels, and more. Hofmann compares Supdrive to another blockchain project, Art Blocks, while describing it, which may give us an idea of what it'll actually be like. The gist of Art Blocks is that it lets creators make programs to procedurally generate art, which is then stored on the blockchain. The programs will always create the same art for a given seed, but changing the seed changes what the art ends up looking like (Minecraft players may be familiar with this sort of system). Then, people buy NFTs for an Art Block project, which will contain a seed, letting them generate that art.
This seems to fit well with what Hofmann is describing, where an on-chain console will play unique games. The details, though, like how exactly it will work, how many copies of each game will be available, and how much they'll cost, are all to be announced. Hofmann's post does say that the plan is to let the community develop games for the Supdrive, if the project ends up working out. He also plans on upgrading the console's abilities, allowing for more advanced games (the initial set of games will be "old-school arcade style"). The first game, made by Hofmann, is called Origin.
Supdrive also has a sort of meta game, with its users being split up into Pokemon-esque Red, Green, and Blue teams. Hofmann's announcement post says that which team you're on could have an effect on the game you're playing. For now, though, the different color teams are mostly memeing at each other in the Discord. In the Discord chat, Hofmann said he was aiming for an October launch for the project. He's also said that he'll be doing updates "every week or so" leading up to the launch.
This seems to fit well with what Hofmann is describing, where an on-chain console will play unique games. The details, though, like how exactly it will work, how many copies of each game will be available, and how much they'll cost, are all to be announced. Hofmann's post does say that the plan is to let the community develop games for the Supdrive, if the project ends up working out. He also plans on upgrading the console's abilities, allowing for more advanced games (the initial set of games will be "old-school arcade style"). The first game, made by Hofmann, is called Origin.
Supdrive also has a sort of meta game, with its users being split up into Pokemon-esque Red, Green, and Blue teams. Hofmann's announcement post says that which team you're on could have an effect on the game you're playing. For now, though, the different color teams are mostly memeing at each other in the Discord. In the Discord chat, Hofmann said he was aiming for an October launch for the project. He's also said that he'll be doing updates "every week or so" leading up to the launch.
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Sssh! Don't you know that every time somebody says that, a new, worse retard is created?
Somebody's probably starting on adding an AI-based Elon "Clippy" Musk to it right now!
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I wish I had mod points to push this one up. Thanks. I needed that laugh.
oh (Score:1)
lotta buzzwords in this one.
k.
Wow, this sounds dumb (Score:3)
Re: Wow, this sounds dumb (Score:3)
This will get a bunch of VC money and they will try to sell it to a big company before it becomes apparent that it cannot be profitable. Like Vine.
The startup gig is such a racket. The people who actually do the work have to hope that when the company is bought they retain their jobs or they have to move on to the next gig.
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And that isn't a glib comment. I mean it genuinely sounds awful from beginning to end. But power to them if they think they can make a buck off it I guess.
If history repeats itself, it will be a moderate success, get purchased by a larger company, and get shut down. A few years later, a Chinese startup [wikipedia.org] will largely copy the idea, add a few key features, and become a risk to US national security.
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What part of "validate a software license by checking whether a token was transferred on a blockchain, and hope it isn't cracked within hours like every other game licence checker is" seems to you like it will ever become workable, much less a compelling value proposition?
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Business model: Juicero for games.
It's usually true of everything, but doubly so for copy protection mechanisms, that "must always be connected to the network" is a bug, not a feature.
Look on the bright side (Score:3)
At least it's not someone where we'd have to lament that he's wasting precious time he could spend on his more worthwhile other project.
This isn't how NFTs work (Score:2)
NFTs can not contain code, or files, or data of any significance. They are just small manifests that are guaranteed to be unique, and they contain pointers to where to go get a file.
So in this case, the NFT will contain a pointer to a game.... Which, unless it has some kind of DRM (that has nothing at all to do with the NFT) could be copied indefinitely.