Friday, December 17th 2021
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 NFT Integration Canceled After Fan Backlash
GSC Gameworld, developers of the highly awaited STALKER 2, have revised their stance on integrating NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) within the game after considerable fan backlash. While a number of companies have already aspired to integrate NFTs into their games (notably Ubisoft with its Quartz platform), it seems that mainstream perception of NFTs is still sorely lacking. Considering the fan backlash, NFTs are currently considered speculative in nature, and seem to be interpreted as nothing more than cash grabs from games development companies, trying to ride the hype of the million-dollar sales that have happened in the NFT space since its inception.
GSC Gameworld shared their thoughts on the matter and rationale behind canceling the NFT integration: "Based on the feedback we received, we've made a decision to cancel anything NFT-related in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2," the company said via Twitter. "The interests of our fans and players are the top priority for the team. We're making this game for you to enjoy - whatever the cost is. If you care, we care too."The caveat here is that NFT integration means nothing specifically to a games' quality, or the quality of its systems. And of course, any gamer who wants nothing to do with the rampantly speculative NFT market can simply... Not care about the NFTs that are being integrated. With the information GSC Gameworld shared, there was no thread to pull on any actual disadvantages for the game in terms of its handling of NFT integration. NFTs might have a (deservedly) bad rep when it comes to the usage that's actually expected of them at the time, and no-one can of course know how much money (if any) would GSC Gameworld make from its planned - and apparently shelved - NFT product platform. The fact remains that anyone not willing to enter the NFT world yet would not be forced, in any way, to spend any sort of money or to interact with NFTs themselves.
Sadly, the announcement didn't cover exactly what would happen to the company's plans to integrate an NFT winner into the game as an NPC character. And perhaps GSC Gameworld is now losing the opportunity to make as much money (or more) from NFTs as it would actually make from game sales themselves - considering how there were NFTs with pictures of rocks being sold for half a million dollars, that doesn't sound like such a distant possibility.
Source:
STALKER Official Twitter
GSC Gameworld shared their thoughts on the matter and rationale behind canceling the NFT integration: "Based on the feedback we received, we've made a decision to cancel anything NFT-related in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2," the company said via Twitter. "The interests of our fans and players are the top priority for the team. We're making this game for you to enjoy - whatever the cost is. If you care, we care too."The caveat here is that NFT integration means nothing specifically to a games' quality, or the quality of its systems. And of course, any gamer who wants nothing to do with the rampantly speculative NFT market can simply... Not care about the NFTs that are being integrated. With the information GSC Gameworld shared, there was no thread to pull on any actual disadvantages for the game in terms of its handling of NFT integration. NFTs might have a (deservedly) bad rep when it comes to the usage that's actually expected of them at the time, and no-one can of course know how much money (if any) would GSC Gameworld make from its planned - and apparently shelved - NFT product platform. The fact remains that anyone not willing to enter the NFT world yet would not be forced, in any way, to spend any sort of money or to interact with NFTs themselves.
Sadly, the announcement didn't cover exactly what would happen to the company's plans to integrate an NFT winner into the game as an NPC character. And perhaps GSC Gameworld is now losing the opportunity to make as much money (or more) from NFTs as it would actually make from game sales themselves - considering how there were NFTs with pictures of rocks being sold for half a million dollars, that doesn't sound like such a distant possibility.
40 Comments on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 NFT Integration Canceled After Fan Backlash
But in a world that has developed serious trust issues wrt how we use money (note that crypto is a result of this!) it seems very illogical to be collaborative.
Lets look at the resume of publishers and developers in their relentless quest to acquire budget for games, or, put differently, how they try to move the risk to the consumer before even releasing the product. Early access, pre order bonuses (with ingame advantage, they still exist), empty promises of content or features, lootboxes, moving base game content to DLC... I can add another dozen tricks. And is this all consumer choice? The lootbox actually got the banhammer for delivering gambling to kids. Very responsible, very ethical. Games are becoming pure psychological manipulation and this is fine, live and let live?!
The consumer/market relationship is most definitely a power relationship. Dont be naive. You even said so yourself, we can just not buy in. And we can also voice complaints, which could be seen as a warning sign: we are about to not buy, be careful now!
Or, take a brief look at the history of GSC and this franchise. Crytek V2.
www.shacknews.com/article/71536/stalker-developer-admits-we-will-do-our-best-to-continue
gamerant.com/stalker-apocalypse/
First you should not say "you seem to be interpreting my stance incorrectly" ; but "it seems that I've not be clear about my opinion, let me rephrase that". Enhanced by "I think I know myself better than you".
If you think like you know yourself better, you're wrong. I don't know you, but I pretty sure it's true. Never assume you're in control of yourself. Back to the main subject !
Facts are not one side of the coin, and History the other. As a European, you should know better than anyone. Facts are here to anticipate what is going to be the outcome based on History.
Quick History of virtual goods (examples) :
- Share of a company ? (previous century) We regulated it because it can be pretty harmful. It's a success, pretty much.
- Coins ?(previous decade) It's unregulated and every piece of electronics is now evaluated as "how much it has value when mining", resulting in unprecedented chaos and non-sense we all know now.
- NFT ?(previous year) It's unregulated. We have yet no evidence of any consequences since it's not yet used
Want fact and history ? You have an unregulated market, wide open, with company ready to enter as large as Facebook, in a already disturbed world (covid + coins + lack of chips).
History told us that even the smallest unregulated market is going to create a problem. You can add to the list many mobile app like Uber, Airbnb which had a strong impact on economy.
NFT are, looking back at History through the lens of facts, in the best way to go south.
It's unregulated. => As coins
It's not manipulating a concrete thing. => As coins
It's linked directly to our economy. (which leads back to "unregulated") => As coins
Major companies are investing. => Later, as coins
Sounds more like pitchfork and fire than sweet bakery.
You can play the Candide card as long as you want, but turning your back on a problem won't make it disappear. You have to take some actions, like sending mails to the company making the game you waited for a long time, that what they are trying to do is not a good idea at all.
Many problems can be solved with small actions. This on was. Another could be to stop putting resources into Denuvo implementation and put back those resources on making a better game !
Examples are countless.
It takes a few to disturb a mass. We all know it can turn to good use (bitcoin is technically a great idea), but we all know some people are greedy, leading unpredictable use and chain reactions.
Thank you @Valantar , you told it probably better than me. I just added my opinion on why he's misjudging the gravity of the situation.
Also I have a feeling this might have been a marketing stunt. They couldn't have not known the reaction plus decision was reversed in just 2 days.
Oh GSC, you silly drama queen.
But if they're all plastic, yeah screw that $340. :laugh:
screenrant.com/ubisoft-quartz-nft-game-youtube-dislikes-controversy/
(so cool youtube removed the dislike count isn't it? it's all to protect the content creators of course... that's why even the api is now gone, but a different discussion).
This is all motivated by greed, but ultimately GSC still wants to be able to sell the game so they didn't have a choice. Even then, it's bad publicity that they didn't need, gaming community does not forget that easily and they're already up to a bad start.
Just to drive the point home I'm gonna paste 2 tid bits related the ubisoft debacle from developers who actually work on this stuff and from a youtuber
(kotaku.com/ubisoft-devs-don-t-understand-company-s-nft-push-eithe-1848215633)
“I still don’t really understand the ‘problem’ being solved here,” wrote one employee. “Is it really worth the (extremely) negative publicity this will cause?” Another asked, “How can you look at private property, speculation, artificial scarcity, and egoism, then say ‘yes this is good, I want that, let’s put it in art?’”
“I normally try to stay positive on our announcements but this one is upsetting,” wrote a third.
“600 hours to earn an NFT!” tweeted YouTube game critic SkillUp. “Now crypto bros will just afk bot to farm hours so they can collect their shitty helmet. Ubi wins because they can book these metrics as ‘increased MAUs’ [monthly active users], even though [it’s] all pumped up by this garbage.”
CSGO has real money tied up with its skins. TF2 for hats, DOTA2, etc. Yet these games are still being played for fun. What makes in game NFTs any different? Is it because of "environmental" stuff? Because some modern blockchains like Solana consumes less power that two google searches for its transaction.
Do you guys work for free? Would you want to?
It's a game, essentially an optional toy. Don't like it? Then don't buy it, simple as that. If NFTs were implemented as an option, who really cares and how does it differ from skins you all love so much? Some people want to spend money on pointless things - ask your wife/girlfriend what is the practical reason for owning jewellery -, some don't. To each his own.
Don't you worry, snowflakes, someone will do it. Probably EA in one of their sports games, and it will become the norm soon enough.
And you did say it all; glad you're "pretty sure it's true" :p
We are far and away from my argument by now. We were not discussing the merits or demerits of unregulated markets. I specifically referred the point of contention being with the pitchfork atitude, which makes consumers lose power in the long run, and does nor us nor businesses any good.
If people want to lose their ability to guide technology implementation, that's with them. I'd have preferred that we were colectively able to hold our breath and think about these issues for more than the time it takes to write a 140-character tweet. My argument is that that attitude only shoves the problem further down the line (companies will still implement whatever brings them money), and we'll have lost the ability to guide the implementation towards something we might actually want.
Or maybe I just like people to operate on a basis of mutual respect. I, for one, would prefer if the vocal minority didn't make uninformed choices for me. Do note the "uninformed" adjective - no-one knew how and if NFTs would impact their gaming experience on STALKER 2 in any way. Being at the mercy of knee-jerk reactions is all fun and games until you're the target. Who are you to call anyone a sucker? We're all just so much better and smarter than everyone else, and so are our choices, right?
Btw, I don't love or do microtransactions (I've spent what, $19 on those through the years?).
Also, yes, of course. You can say that games' content was destroyed by microtransactions... Or maybe it's because games and their assets and their systems are now much more complicated than when you inserted your magazine demo CDs on your PC of the time. I'd say it's a mixture of the two with about 100 other factors thrown in, but you seem to have eveything completely and undoubtedly figured out. Must be nice.
Let's see about your "consumer choice is to wholesale reject NFTs" bit in ten years, shall we? =)
The public has sponken time and time again against this stupid monetization mecanics, at least this time the risk was enough to dispell the economic oportunism, but just like it happened with micro transactions, p2w, loot boxes, etc.. eventually we'll have a new cancer in the industry to deal with.
You like to read yourself, but when the time comes of giving real argument, nobody's there.
We're all telling you that including NFT at start will either "do no profit" or "do harm" to any companies based on what we saw the last ten years : Season Pass, DLC, micro-transactions, loot-boxes, deluxe edition without any content.
Yeah sure, you can create a bunch of editions including some soundtracks you already produced, why not. But do you still see season pass ? I don't. Do you still see DLC like when games were sold in kits ? I don't, it's only minor content for most of them now.
Why ? Because nearly all gamers acknowledged that games aren't better with DLC, and companies don't earn more money. Some do, many don't.
A word also on micro-transactions : have you ever tried to apply to a job around a game based on micro-transaction ?
I'm 100% sure that you didn't. Why ? Because one the first business case they give you is how to create a game experience that holds players by the nuts with micro-transactions. Bluntly.
For example, they show you (basically) that you need to create a good experience, show them an entertaining progression curve, but stop them just after you've tasted it. What do you do ? You buy a small amount of content. And it goes on and on, until you spent 100€ in a game without noticing.
Some stops on the road, but many goes nearly to the end.
And if you want to see what blockchain does to your game, you better be well-seated. Because in 10 years, I'm not quite sure you'll have changed your GPU because of mining/shortage/price increase/etc.
If GPU costs 5000€, it's 5000€ also for any game producer and all employees. Is it worth it ? Really ? Are you that naive/rich/despising others ?
Because we don't claim that kind of stuff often. But 13 years of bitcoin mining made us realize that we can't stay short sighted and we can't hope for the best on "whatever brings money" to companies.
We also work in companies, and you don't need to throw a hazard like this to know it's not the right thing to do.
Does Denuvo doing any good to companies paying for it ? Does it help make bigger sales ? No. It doesn't.
It only secures the first week or so of sales for shareholders. That's it.
The list is long and I could go on with so many examples in many games that you could read my post for an entire day. Stop looking at us like we are peasants trying to burn the supposed witch. You know we are right, and there's many other ways to include NFT without damaging game's development if you really like it. It's called an update.
I don't know your angle, but "sit tight and asses" is not something I do.
I'm not thrilled to post a text like this, I can go through trolls without posting anything, but you aren't (a troll), not IMHO. You need to know that we are trying to explain to you what's going to happen.
You're right, it's not 100% sure, but try to understand that 95% is enough for us to shield up and make them think twice.
They did, and they came to the same conclusion. Bet why ?