NFTs being implemented and offered has become one of the more controversial issues across the wider entertainment industry but particularly with respect to gaming communities. The larger gaming community has pushed back on the presence of NFTs in the gaming space as they argue they are a scam, ponzi scheme, and bad for the environment due to their high energy consumption associated with blockchain transactions. Despite the same backlash occurring each time a major title gets involved in NFTs, this has not stopped many companies from jumping in and seeing if they can turn digital wares into cash.
Non-fungible tokens can be a confusing topic, but they boil down to being uniquely identifiable items that can be sold or traded with others using cryptocurrency. In an interview done with VentureBeat, Craig Donato, who is the Chief Business Officer at Roblox, explained the company’s thoughts on the controversial technology.
We want to do whatever we can to enable that. In the future, do I expect us to be enabling things like NFTs? Absolutely. I don’t see why we wouldn’t do it. It’s a matter of, when is that–given the million things we need to do, how important is that? Is it super important right now? Not so much. It would be kind of buzzy if we did it. But in terms of product functionality for our users, we’ll see. But we’re not philosophically opposed to it at all, to the extent that it creates more value, that it lets creators come together in more interesting ways to provide value to users.
Craig Donato, Chief Business Officer at Roblox
In the short-term, it doesn’t look like they will be added to the platform anytime soon. However, that obviously leaves the door open for things to change in the future. NFTs are an evolving market, so whether or not they stick around long enough to be relevant to Roblox’s plans remains to be seen.
This isn’t the first time NFTs have come up with Roblox. One of the biggest games on the platform, Pet Simulator X, created NFTs on the OpenSea market, which if purchased would give the owner a unique pet in the game. The creator apparently hadn’t been keeping up much with community sentiment, because they were surprised by the response.
While it was controversial, the sales still went through, with one of the NFTs selling for 4.5946 ETH, which was the equivalent of about $19,000 USD at the time.
Gaming companies continue to grapple with the controversial nature of this technology. While many may not like it, if the money continues to flow, it seems likely that it will become more commonplace in the future.
Comments