Steam is now banning all games that engage in cryptocurrency or NFT trading

Opinion: I don't buy the hype around NFTs, but gaming will be one of the best ways for it to prove itself

 

It's no secret that I don't put much faith in cryptocurrencies to do anything other than help accelerate the destruction of our environment, and NFTs – which are at least nobler in intent, who doesn't want artists to get paid fairly for their work? – likewise, look like an interesting computer science exercise in theory, but in practice, feels more like everyone collecting Furbies and expecting to retire on their investment. 

People spent $100,000 on some of those too. But NFTs might actually have some genuine utility that I'm not seeing, so I do put them in a different category than cryptocurrency which is pretty much just a vehicle for tax avoidance, money-laundering, and criminal activity. 

One of the ways we can find if NFTs are more than just another pop investment craze is by putting NFTs and blockchain to use in creative ways, and gaming has always been one of the biggest drivers of technological innovation. 

IBM developed its Watson AI platform first to win a game of Jeopardy, but now it's being used in all kinds of important industrial applications that require emotive intelligence that can understand the intuitive human context.

Training AI on games like Chess and Go has pushed the boundaries of artificial intelligence and led to important developments in machine learning, as has to apply it to Super Mario Bros. and other popular video games. If there is a genuinely useful role for NFTs in the world, gaming is definitely one of the ways to identify and develop it.

I don't know how you platform a game that rewards players with tangible real-world value wgucg don't quickly descend into something exploitative or turn that platform into little more than a casino, but I doubt that Valve's objection is over something being exchanged that has real-world value. 

EVE Online is still going strong, and that game very openly promoted the idea that players build ships and starbases that have real-world value – enough that climactic battles have led to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of dollars in value, in fact.

Whatever Valve's reasoning, some transparency is warranted as far as NFTs go, since it could be essential to proving that they're actually valuable at all.