An internal culture war is playing out across the video game industry, with developers (and players) battling executives and crypto evangelists.
For video game developer Fred, it's a good time to find a job. COVID-19 has made video games more popular than ever, but this popularity coincides with the entry of cryptocurrencies and their by-products, such as NFTs, into the mainstream market. The topic of cryptocurrencies is everywhere, and to avoid jeopardizing his career, Fred asked to remain anonymous, not only indifferent to NFTs, but also staunchly opposed.
Fred said in an interview with Waypoint: "What a cruel world we live in, where people are forced to commoditize things like games that are so pure and essential to the human experience."
When Fred was interviewing for a senior position at a new studio created by a group of veteran game developers, he was told that developer might be interested in incorporating blockchain into their games. There is nothing mentioned about cryptocurrencies on the studio's website. Fred said he wouldn't have applied in the first place. On two occasions last year, Fred discovered during interviews that game studios and potential employers were interested in incorporating blockchain into their games.
"They waited until halfway through the hour-long phone interview to mention 'something that's a bit controversial for some people,' i.e. using blockchain," Fred said.
The potential employer then sent an email with links to articles such as "Would Karl Marx support the existence of blockchain?" Fred politely turned down the job afterwards, noting that any job involving cryptocurrencies would be impossible. In response to Fred's decision, the company's CEO sent a personal article about why blockchain is cool, including asking Fred why someone could reject cryptocurrencies but "support fiat currencies like the us dollar."
Waypoint spoke with developers from Electronic Arts, Zynga, Behaviour Interactive, Ubisoft and other companies. These companies are actively using or considering using cryptocurrencies in their games. The developers Interviewed by Waypoint all described the confusion and opposition within the company, arguing that these monetary symbols that guide management's decisions pose a threat to the way and why games are being made today.
Despite Fred's opposition to cryptocurrencies, gaming companies are still interested in hiring him. But it adds a new layer of complexity to job searching, beyond "Does this project sound cool?" Is my salary suitable? Are the benefits good?" Normal standards. A company's basic culture and ethics are important, but often difficult to parse from the outside. Cryptocurrencies, then, become a red flag.
Fred now works for a company founded by a group of veteran game developers, and so far, NFTs haven't emerged.
Cryptocurrencies have been around for more than a decade, but in 2021, it will take on a bigger position among video game industry executives. Ubisoft launched its own NFT series, several companies announced their support for NFTs, and then canceled the plan due to repercussions. It's a rare occurrence where nearly all of the gaming community has banded together against NFTs, and its "play-to-earn" claim has left many feeling fundamentally undermining the long-standing contract between players and developers about why we play video games.
"Business people love NFTs because they look like they're making a lot of money with very little work, which is exactly the way they want to live, but I'll tell you that from a developer's perspective, no one wants to take the initiative to do these things."
The Diablo 3 auction house is the most famous example of an early game money-making system that integrates, where players can buy and sell weapons and items for real money. "Play-to-earn" is a phrase that has recently appeared in which players earn "rewards" by participating in video games, thereby earning actual money, but there was no concept at the time. But Blizzard's experiment in monetizing scarcity was a disaster.
Jay Wilson, former game director of Diablo 3, said years later: "I think we all know this now and its consequences." We worried about these consequences in advance, but we thought the benefits would outweigh the drawbacks, and World of Warcraft's auction house seemed like a good proof of concept. Obviously we were mistaken. ”
This interest in cryptocurrencies, largely motivated by economic motivations, has spawned a situation similar to what Fred experienced, where companies say one thing in public and another in private.
Some companies, such as Square Enix, have been more outspoken about their plans, promising to "push hard" blockchain games in the future. Electronic Arts is one of these companies.
In early November, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said on an earnings call that NFTs were part of "the future of our industry", with "NFTs" and "blockchain" mentioned in the company's job listings. Considering that EA has released many multiplayer games, including collectible trading cards for the very popular soccer series FIFA, EA's curiosity makes sense.
According to a screenshot of Waypoint, a month later there was a problem with Slack inside EA. One channel in the Slack is "EA Insider," where companies can answer internal questions from employees. On Dec. 9, the company responded to a question on the topic: "EA appears to be hiring for positions around NFTs. One of EA's core commitments is to revolve around the environment. How do we reconcile this? ”
"While we're seeing the rise of NFT-driven games," Wilson said in a longer response, "the vast majority of deals right now are speculative investments that don't offer utility, have little connection to the community, and are largely based on the belief that value will increase over time." Speculative investing is not the area we want to enter. As we explore NFTs, our direction is to provide practical objects in the experience while creating status and connection with the community. Compared to most people in the digital collectibles space, this is where we have more opportunities to create a strong value proposition for players."
When it comes to environmental issues, Wilson echoes a clichéd point: "We've seen a lot of progress in reducing the environmental impact of using blockchain." Like many companies, EA has publicly committed to protecting the environment by reducing its carbon footprint, a commitment that is undermined by the way most cryptocurrency projects currently work. Most cryptocurrencies use a "proof of work" blockchain, which requires a lot of energy to process transactions. In response to environmental criticism, some companies such as Ubisoft have used so-called "proof-of-stake" blockchains, which are a more energy-efficient way.
During the screenshot, employees responded with a variety of expressions: 46 "rock" hands, 28 Christmas trees, 56 thumbs up, 160 thumbs down, 96 confused faces, 115 stop signs, 81 "no" and so on. Employees are not allowed to comment other than emojis.
You can read Wilson's full reply below:
Ea CEO Andrew Wilson spoke about the NFT in an internal chat message.
EA confirmed the authenticity of the post to Waypoint, but declined to comment or elaborate.
In February, Wilson publicly took a lukewarm view of NFTs, saying on an earnings call that it would be "assessed over time" and that it remains to be seen whether the collectability in the game is related to blockchain.
While EA has been looking for employees familiar with cryptocurrency technology, FarmVille publisher and mobile gaming giant Zynga announced in November that matt Wolf would be hired as its "vice president of blockchain." Zynga President Bernard Kim told Axios that Wolf's hiring and Zynga's move into cryptocurrencies was for "players and their aspirations."
A current Zynga employee at Waypoint said: "I know some Zynga employees who are deeply skeptical of cryptocurrencies and NFTs, and there are some people who love these technologies." Waypoint has been working at Zynga for several years, and the employee asked for anonymity because they didn't want to put their jobs in jeopardy. "Eventually the game will always be shut down, and the person who buys these NFTs will end up holding something useless, and depending on the structure of the cryptocurrency, it could burn a lot of fossil fuels."
In Zynga's Slack, there is a channel dedicated to cryptocurrencies, and the company is very much looking forward to hiring someone who explicitly considers Zynga's future with this technology.
When employees had the opportunity to formally ask for more details, the question quickly popped up. Andrew Ice, Zynga's senior vice president of product, game design and analysis, said at a departmental meeting last December that the company had received "a lot of feedback about NFTs, a lot of people were excited, but there was also some very negative feedback." ”
Ice said, "NFT games, or games based on blockchain technology, are definitely thriving right now. "In a way, especially when it comes to speculation, it's probably not sustainable." But it can indeed be as transformative as the impact of IAP on games. Therefore, it is necessary for us to carry out some attention and research. ”
This is a screenshot of the video game FarmVille 3. Image source: ZYNGA
Ice refuted the popular theory that Zynga would immediately push NFTs into games like FarmVille, noting that this was not its "intent." Instead, Zynga wants to develop new games around the technology, especially with an eye on how to scale the technology.
He also acknowledged that the environmental impact of a technology like Bitcoin is "very, very real," but like Wilson, he immediately turned to "how fast this technology is advancing" to address concerns about climate change.
Our sources said: "His description makes people feel more upset than I realized."
Zynga spokesman Kenny Johnston told Waypoint that the company "cannot disclose the details of internal meetings" and therefore will not comment on Ice's report.
Johnston said: "We are assembling a team to explore how Zynga puts the community first in a humble way." Currently, we have a team of about 6 people and we hope that over time, that number will grow. While we naturally had a lot of questions when we first announced this, overall, the mood of the employees was positive and we didn't see any employee turnover due to our growth in this area. ”
A company-wide all-staff meeting was scheduled a few weeks later, but it was postponed to January. There's a reason for this shift: Take-Two Interactive, publisher of Grand Theft Auto, announced on Jan. 10 that it would buy Zynga for $12.7 billion. At a staff meeting held shortly afterwards, the NFT didn't really emerge and acquisitions were a priority.
"Perhaps not surprisingly, issues such as takeover negotiations have taken over all the discussion," the employee said.
However, the two companies are in agreement on NFTs, with Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick saying he is a "big believer" to NFTs, but he downplayed the continued opposition from players, arguing that patience is needed. Zelnick said in a recent interview with IGN: "Let's not question the technology itself, because so far, the performance of the technology is just speculation."
Over the past few years, Behaviour Interactive's Dead by Daylight has been one of the most popular (and enduring) multiplayer games in which 4 players try to survive the attack of another player who acts as a powerful "killer". Dead by Daylight also has its own "killer," but its biggest attraction lies in the ever-expanding horrible gallery of horror icons such as Michael Myers, Freddie Kruger, and others.
"Games are always shut down, and the people who buy these NFTs end up with something useless, and depending on the structure of the cryptocurrency, it could burn a lot of fossil fuels."
Last September, developer Behaviour Interactive announced that Hellraiser's Pinhead would join Dead by Daylight, and it's predictable that people will be very excited about it.
Pinhead's addition went well, but in October, the developer announced a partnership with Boss Protocol, a company that "enables brands to unleash the full potential of blockchain." In this case, Behaviour worked with Boss Protocol to transform the game model from Dead by Daylight, including Pinhead, into an NFT capable of unlocking game content.
Dead by Daylight fans weren't too interested in the decision and quickly began to loudly disagree with the news, fearing it would mean that the NFT would appear in the game.
This resistance soon led Behaviour to publicly declare that "there is no blockchain technology in Dead by Daylight, and it will never exist." "But the partnership with boss Protocol continues, and fans can understandably point out that you say you don't support NFTs, but when it's part of a pre-existing partnership that needs to support NFTs, you support NFTs, which is paradoxical."
Externally, people are uneasy. The same is true inside Behaviour.
"Everybody hates it," said an employee of Behaviour Interactive at the time. The employee asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. "We had no idea it was coming."
The uproar within dead by Daylight studio prompted the developer to take a firm stance on the NFT at its December plenary session. Just hours after the meeting, GSC Game World, the developer of S.A.L.K.E.R. 2, canceled its own NFT program, citing strong opposition.
While companies like Ubisoft loudly claim that they not only support blockchain projects, but are also actively committed to creating their own, Behavior has chosen to keep this position a secret. This prompted an employee to ask for more details at the next all-hands meeting in January.
In an excerpt from the meeting shared with Waypoint, Marie Claude Bernard, director of behavioral marketing communications, said, "Let's be clear." We don't do it now and we won't do it in the future. I mean, we haven't even taken a stand on media or social media, and that's what all of our competitors are currently doing. We've heard Ubisoft and many other companies. But we don't have plans for NFTs now and we won't have them in the future. ”
"She (Bernard) is reiterating in her own words," Steven Ross, head of public relations at Behaviour Interactive, said in a statement to Waypoint, "Behaviour Interactive has publicly shared its position with several media outlets earlier this fall: 'We hear and understand the concerns raised by our community about the NFT.' There is no blockchain technology at all in Dead by Daylight. Nor will it. Behaviour Interactive does not sell NFTs. ’”
Ross noted: "So far, the position of the studio has not changed."
However, Behaviour did not back down from the Hellraiser NFT.
Screenshot of Axie Infinity, one of the most popular NFT games. Image source: Sky Mavis
Most game developers are reluctant to be interviewed by the media, but in the cryptocurrency space, more and more developers are speaking out. After the publisher announced a series of Worms NFTs, Team17 employees spoke to Eurogamer, sparking a backlash and exposing other issues about pay and working conditions. According to Bloomberg, there were "hundreds of negative comments" on the feedback on the company's internal message board about Ubisoft's NFT initiatives.
Currently, there are a lot of emerging crypto video games — such as Pokémon-esque Axie Infinity, one of the most popular — that are good at cryptocurrencies, but not good at the game part. Since cryptocurrencies have been thriving and becoming buzzwords in mainstream culture, there is a lot of money being invested in potential projects. We're now seeing cryptocurrency-focused game companies like Gala Games buying games that are already in development without cryptocurrencies, and then we're now seeing cryptocurrency-focused game companies like Gala Games buying games that are already in development without cryptocurrencies and then joining cryptocurrencies.
Just recently, Gala Games released a game called GRIT, a "brand new combat game set in the old Western Frontier." However, Gala Games News' announcement trailer is the same as the trailer when GRIP first came to light in April 2021. The only difference between the trailers is that there are some "Gala Games coming soon" text at the beginning.
GRIT was originally scheduled to be released on Steam at the end of January, but was suddenly postponed. The developers said on Twitter that the game was "not ready."
Following a partnership with Gala Games, the developers posted a statement on GRIT's Discord server saying that "verbal abuse and personal attacks are not allowed" and discouraged NFT or cryptocurrency-related discussions in channels explicitly used to discuss games, although it appears that the biggest change in GRIT is actually related to cryptocurrencies.
"It's too early to focus on NFT integration," the announcement on Discord continued. "We haven't posted any information on this topic yet, so speculation based on other games isn't very constructive either. Please don't try to interpret our thinking – we'll be posting official information here. ”
"Business people love NFTs because they look like they're making a lot of money with very little work, and that's exactly the way they want to live," said another developer at a major video game publisher who until recently was actively fighting for NFT projects and promoting them internally. But I'll tell you, from a developer's perspective, no one wants to fucking do these things. ”
The developer asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. He noted that cryptocurrency-related propaganda has one thing in common: they take a one-sided approach to the benefits of crypto.
They continued, "We're not trying to make a potential balance." "Here are some potential drawbacks: everybody fucking hates it."
This is the same way companies like Ubisoft have responded to the impact of NFTs. Here's an example: The executive behind Ubisoft's NFT program told Finder that "players don't understand what the digital secondary market can do for them" and "it's really beneficial," but "they don't understand it right now." In other words, players don't understand how cool NFTs are – but they will!
"You're working so hard to win the trust of your players, it's the hardest thing in the whole world," the source said. "It's not worth exaggerating for $40,000 in JPEG images. There are more important things in life than money. There are some values and experiences here that don't need to be monetized. ”
Marc Rutschle, senior game designer at Ubisoft and representative of the Ubisoft Paris union, said: "In their opinion, if we disagree with them, it is because we are so stupid." As far as I know, Ubisoft is still continuing this stupid technology. ”
(Like most game companies, Ubisoft doesn't have a full union organization.) But internationally, where there are strong institutions in the world supported by trade unions, huge publishers are forced to deal with unions. Here is the French union Solidaires Informatique)
In a recent interview with Axios, Zynga Blockchain CEO Matt Wolf said the company is looking for a "token economics designer" to allow Zynga employees to opt out of the NFT project and hopes to release a game later this year. Wolf also noted that what Zynga needs to consider is that the primary interest users in cryptocurrency-centric products may be "yield" rather than gameplay.
"We don't want to give them something they didn't ask for, and we don't want to assume they want a super, super deep gaming experience," Wolf says.
It's a true assessment of Zynga's own ambitions in this space, while also highlighting the tensions between its financial goals and developers and players that are likely to continue in the coming months. Gamers may not like cryptocurrency, but gaming executives are curious about it, and it's not going to go away yet.
One developer said, "They want to change the nature of the game." The game is no longer about fun. The game now is about making money. The secret of the game is that many of the things you do in the game are just to kill time for fun. That's okay, but if you're going to monetize it, the actual monetary value of the video game you're playing is about 3 cents per hour. ”