“you can’t just take over preexisting pronouns for your own purposes”

I struggle to convey the multiple layers of stupid/evil involved with NFTs. This case lacks the usual elements of copyright theft and scams that are pretty standard in the NFT space, so it’s relatively benign. It’s just a gross insult to the developers and profoundly dumb.

Well I mean “get” in the sense that presumably they got sent the jpeg of the hat as part of this scheme, one way or another. Now, obviously they don’t own the jpeg of the hat, they just “own” a link to the URL with the jpeg of the hat. (Because really, it’s not even a receipt for the jpeg. It’s a receipt for, well, its…

Pouard admitted internally that the “interoperability” question remains unanswered.

“Usually we give them team hats when they finish a project - I know, let’s give them pictures of hats, instead! Better yet, we’ll pretend it’s some sort of bonus. If this works, we can start sending them pictures of money instead of paychecks...”

Essentially what Ubi said to its employees was, “To thank you for your hard work, we’re giving you... nothing! Also we made the planet slightly more unlivable - in your honor! And we’re doing it via our previously announced initiative that players have, due to misplaced anger, no doubt been giving you a hard time…

Well, they can’t, really*. Crypto “coins” are manifestly unfit for purpose - the one thing they really can’t function as is a real currency. They’re just assets with no real function other than speculation. The whole crypto thing is a total farce.

The description given here is vague, but it sounds like he started a coin, advertised it as a means by which people would be able to support content creators, then when it got enough investment, he immediately sold off his own stake, making a killing but destroying the value of the coin (so it’s now worthless for any…

but people have said he took money out of a ‘marketing budget’

To be clear - it’s not remotely right, and it also shouldn’t be legal. But it is completely normal in the crypto coin space right now. The whole thing should not exist because crypto is a flaming garbage pile that can’t be made any better.

Plus, calling it a “scam” implies it was illegal or there was a difference between what he did here and other crypto coins, but it sounds to me like it was exactly how these things normally work. So yeah, it was a scam in the sense that all those crypto coins are scams, and anyone investing in any of them is foolish.

Yeah, I’m reading the description of what he did, but it seems exactly like what happens with 90-odd-percent of all crypto coins. The only thing that’s more shady than usual is he floated what I believe they call a “hype coin” but pretended it was something he wanted to have longevity. Which I suppose is exactly how…

I’m going with “disappointed in them.” I’m not even sure they think we’re idiots - it’s possible it’s simply that they’re idiots (or at least have some serious cognitive blind-spots about the weakness of their own position).

Yeah, I can’t get over that quote. Gamers “really believe it’s first destroying the planet, and second just a tool for speculation” but that’s only “because of the current situation and context of NFTs.” I.e. gamers think that because it’s true. But he’s not even trying to refute that, because Ubisoft is looking…

What’s really weird is they seem to be talking about “play to earn” specifically in the context of the new NFT-based games like Axie; the thing is, those games are pyramid schemes that require substantial buy-ins to play (e.g. spend $1000 to start “playing”). They’re also collapsing already, with players unable to…

Now imagine the second-hand market for virtual game items... after the game has shut down. (A lot of these publishers are trying to convince people the NFT-backed items will somehow retain value even in that situation.) Beanie Babies would be like gold in comparison.

“But they don’t get it for now.”

Yeah, “zombie” implies it’s the remains of a company still staggering along - that hasn’t been true for almost 26 years in Atari’s case. Even calling it an Edgar suit situation feels generous. This is more a “Leatherface” situation, with the old company cannibalized, stripped of all flesh, the barest remnants of its…

Yeah, the whole crypto thing is super cult-ish. And it’s not a benign cult, either - besides destroying the environment in practice, the ultimate purpose is to destroy government and the protections it offers its citizens.

Blockchain is not the revolution that speculators and business people want us to believe it is.