GameStop, Polium One shows once again how NFTs in games are a “nightmare”
It has been a bad week and change for those who are still trying to create a relationship between video games, NFTs and the crypto world. Despite vocal outcry from developers and fans who do not want these digital markets near the gaming sector, there are still a select few who want to force integration through a variety of tactics, ranging from ridiculously lazy to disgusting desperation.
First it was the announcement of the Polium One, a Web3 video game console that first drew attention to its logo, which did not look like a flipped and slightly altered Nintendo Gamecube logo. The console also drew laughter for its technical specifications, promising both 4K and 8K video, raytracing and Apple’s proprietary fingerprint scanning technology Touch ID in a console that was barely larger than its knockoff DualSense controls.
All these problems were cleaned up a bit in the last few days. Polium unveiled a new logo that looks like a generic vector art and cleaned up the spec list, including removing the mention of Touch ID. But it’s clearly not enough to believe in the console outside of NFT and crypto followers who continue to fight for the game-for-earn style that Web3 games promote.
The main titles Polium touts as draws for the console are Axie Infinitya game whose internal market crashed earlier this year and is vulnerable to theft, and Bored Ape Yacht Clubs The other sidewho has not shared any real details about the game after the Ethereum blockchain was blocked to the tune of $ 123 million in gas taxes.
Things got even more worrying when a Reddit user discovered that the Polium One console and controller concept images were very similar to a failed South Korean console called Behance Oasis. That, combined with a ridiculously vague road map and everything else known about the console, send the scam flying. It hits the max when you realize that the company is planning to offer pre-orders via a, you guessed it, NFT release, even though it claims it will not open up pre-orders until it has built a prototype.
Polium red flags fed into a creeping anti-NFT in video game talk presented by Chroma Squad develops Mark Venturelli at the Brazil International Games Festival. Venturelli switched from his announced “The Future of Game Design” presentation to a slideshow called “Why NFTs are a nightmare” on stage, and dived into the predation of NFT and crypto rooms among other major concerns about their implementation in games and beyond. The fact that the conference was sponsored by several NFT and blockchain companies that Venturelli said was trying to “buy their relevance, because they have no real influence over the future of our industry.”
“If you just give them this space undisputedly, you give them exactly what they want and buy their story that they are relevant,” he told PC Gamer.
Venturelli’s words gained extra weight when GameStop officially launched its NFT marketplace days after announcing massive layoffs, including key Game Informer staff and the company’s CFO. The shift secures much of GameStop’s future in the blockchain business, despite the fact that the NFT and crypto markets continue to crash – the actual “acquired relevance” referred to by Venturelli.
No matter how much the video game world continues to tell NFTs and cryptographers to stay away, people still want to leave the door cracked enough for the exploitation and gas-filled promises of Web3 evangelists to come in. Short-term goals and the desire to make a market facing mass rejection seem like a good idea have concrete effects on people, and, much like the NFT area itself, are the only ones that can benefit from the power, such as. as GameStop boss Matt Furlong.
“The GameStop of the future has a unique opportunity to anticipate and meet a growing range of customer requirements and merging interests across our stores, online properties and the virtual world,” Furlong said in an email with employees.
Some people just want to believe in the nightmare.