Apple Ignores Gaming, and Gaming Ignores Apple

Beyond copyright skepticism, there’s technical skepticism to “true ownership.” The assets players “own” are not stored on the blockchain. It’s simply too expensive (more than $100 per GB and rising) to put large files on each node. Some firms employ IPFS, but centralization and trust rear their ugly head again.

Take Sorare as an example, a firm I’ve written about before. A player cannot take “their” football cards and build a new mode or FIFA-like game utilizing them. “Ownership” does not imply an unlimited license or even an exclusive one to the token owner.

But blockchain warps the traditional meaning of ownership into a ship of Theseus problem; each blockchain-based game can define ownership in its context. Suddenly, ownership becomes a design space in itself, making it all that much more crucial to dissect and analyze.

Take a stroll through a blockchain game website – they are all lovely; remember that’s their UA funnel! – and a standard set of phrases appear: “ownership,” “true ownership,” “truly owning.”

In nearly all cases, blockchain games don’t confer “true” ownership of an asset beyond the ability to buy and sell. It’s definitely something, but perhaps it’s a bit of a stretch to consider that single ability “true” ownership.