Why classic gaming names like Atari are still going in on the blockchain

I find no love for games in services like YouTube Gaming or Twitch. They seem to me like nothing more than influencer marketing schemes that use games as bait. It is no wonder, then, that some of their former executives are on the side of promoting NFTs for games. They have no respect for the artistry and creativity that goes into making games, only for the profit and popularity they can extract from them.

Atari isn't a classic gaming name; it's the latest in a line of pretenders (4th?) Who have bought the name at auction.

I like crypto and I see value in some platforms, but this is just a BS cash grab.<p>There are several issues why this is stupid:<p>1. You can&#x27;t transfer the NFTs to different gaming platforms.<p>2. This is achievable without NFTs. It has been for years.<p>3. The gaming studios focused on NFTs and blockchain tend to ignore the core of gaming: how fun is the game?

From the article:<p>&gt; Now nostalgic gaming brands like MapleStory, Neopets, and Atari are still trying to promote their blockchain initiatives [..]<p>I&#x27;m not familiar with the history of MapleStory but Neopets was infamously sold off at the time and the only thing classic about Atari at this point is the name since it has been bought and sold numerous times since the classic period the name evokes.<p>So I guess at least as far as these two names are concerned the obvious answer is &quot;because people are sitting on those famous brand names they bought and still trying to figure out how to milk their nostalgia for money&quot;. In other words, they were a perfect match for the NFT cashgrab period and the companies owning those brands aren&#x27;t willing to give up on that opportunity yet.<p>Framing this as &quot;classic gaming names [..] going in on the blockchain&quot; evokes the idea of long-standing companies or even former giants turned underdogs seeing some kind of technological merit in the blockchain when instead it seems more like investors bought some IP and are desperate to find new ways to milk it. Of course in a way Neopets was the original ape NFT collection, just without the rampant money laundering and speculative investment ponzi scheme.<p>EDIT: Looks like MapleStory is a pay-to-win&#x2F;pay-to-play MMO so it&#x27;s literally built around milking people for cash. So their motivation is pretty clear, too. None of these examples demonstrate any usefulness in blockchain (regardless of whether any such usefulness has been demonstrated elsewhere) beyond trying to get people to spend money.

Atari as a brand name was bought by someone new if I recall correctly

Going against the usual knee jerk &quot;crypto bad&quot; reaction, I don&#x27;t think nft-s are inherently bad in games. All the usual hatepoints (microtransactions, pay to win, developer still controls the use of the nfts, etc) are true or can be true with or without items being nfts.<p>The difference I care about is tradability and transferability, which is inherent to nft-s but not to normal in-game items. For example hearthstone, blizzard&#x27;s warcraft tcg, would be much better for nft cards. It would get a second hand card market similar to MTG automatically if it used nft cards on some public blockchain.

I outlined some thoughts on how game NFTs could work, and provide benefits over current centralized models.[1]<p>I don’t take much stock in play-to-earn or “playable bored apes” or whatever some publishers are currently investing in.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gist.github.com&#x2F;mattdesl&#x2F;ec2bf085b19407695b23cb90f6fdd2b7" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gist.github.com&#x2F;mattdesl&#x2F;ec2bf085b19407695b23cb90f6f...</a>

IMHO, it is not making sense to purchase in-game assets without the ownership. It is like paying for ebooks in kindle. But, what you get is actually right to read.