NFTs have received a big thumbs up from the founder of the biggest gaming streaming platform.
Justin Kan, the co-founder of Twitch, previously Justin.tv, has said that gaming NFTs are unlike anything the industry has seen, and that they will be way bigger than the platform he built, despite its millions of users.
Justin sold Twitch to Amazon in 2014 for $970 Million, and now spends his resources investing in startups. One of those is Fractal, an NFT marketplace built on the Solana blockchain.
Justin took to Twitter to explain that NFT games will revolutionize the industry, a lot like ‘free to play’ games took over a few years ago.
“NFTs are a better business model for games. Many gamers seem to be raging hard against game studios selling NFTs. But NFTs are also better for players.”
Justin Kan, Twitch co-founder
He then went to support his line of reasoning, writing.
“NFTs can be a better ongoing model for games Web3 games will open economies, and by building the games on open and programmable assets (tokens + NFTs) they will create far more economic value than they could from any one game.
“Imagine Fortnite, but other developers can build experiences on top of the V-Bucks and skins. Epic would get a royalty every time any transaction happens. As big as Fortnite is today, Open Fortnite could be much bigger, because it will be a true platform.
“NFTs are better for gamers Allowing gamers to have ownership of the assets they buy and earn in game allows them to participate in the potential growth of a game. It lets gamers preserve some economic value when they switch to playing something new.
“But what about the criticisms of NFTs? Here are my thoughts on the common FUDs.
“It’s just a money grab on the part of the studios!” Game studios already switched over to the model of selling in-game items, cosmetics, etc to players long ago. But currently the digital stuff players are buying isn’t re-sellable. NFT ownership is strictly better for players.
“The games aren’t real games.” This reminds me of the criticism of free-to-play in 2008, when the games were Mafia Wars / FarmVille. We haven’t had time for great developers to create incredible experiences yet. Everyone investing in games knows there are great teams building.
“Game NFTs aren’t really decentralized because they rely on models / assets inside centralized game clients.” Crypto is as much a movement as it is a technology. Putting items on a blockchain is what gives people trust that they have participatory ownership which make people willing to buy in to the game. These assets are “backed” by blockchain. The fact that these item collections are NFTs will make other people willing to build on top of them.
“NFTs are bad for the environment.” Solana and L2s solve this.
“NFT games are better for players and for game developers. Like the free-to-play revolution changed gaming, so will blockchain. The games of the future will be fully robust, with open and programmable economies.”
Well, I don’t think you’ll find a clear argument on why NFTs are a winner.
Also agreeing with Justin was one of the developers who worked on Apple Pay. “Yeah I helped build @Apple Pay it now has billions of users. & NFTs are way bigger,” he tweeted.
