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The NFT market is finding itself in a bit of a pickle recently. After its meteoric rise in 2021, sales of NFTs have since levelled off and may in fact be in a bit of a decline, though that hasn’t stopped the likes of GameStop entering the space with its own NFT marketplace. In even more bizarre news, a Web 3 company known as Polium introduced the “world’s first” NFT console, making us question the direction of human evolution.
Despite the ongoing popularity of NFTs within certain communities, it’s clear that more and more people are coming out of the woodwork to denounce the concept altogether. At the recent International Games Festival in Brazil, one dev actually managed to give an entire talk on why NFTs are “a nightmare”, despite the fact that the event was being sponsored by a number of NFT and blockchain companies.
Known for his work on the tactical RPG Chroma Squad, developer Mark Venturelli initially kicked off his talk by labelling it as “The Future of Game Design”, but surprised audience members part way through when he effectively crossed out the title in the slideshow and replaced it with “Why NFTs Are a Nightmare”. The talk itself was uploaded to YouTube and his slides have been kindly translated into English for you to peruse.
What’s particularly interesting is that despite the numerous sponsorships from NFTs-related companies, the event organisers cleared the contents of the talk prior to the presentation, allowing Venturelli to give his statement free of any interruptions. In a statement to PCGamer after the event, Venturelli said that the sponsors were understandably not happy with the talk:
“I’ve heard that the sponsors got really mad. They tried to break into the talk while I was talking, but the organisation would not let them. That doesn’t surprise me, because the organisation, not at a single point did they censor me, did they stop me from putting what I wanted on the slides. I gave them access to the slides before the talk. There was never any kind of intention on their side to shut me up or anything like that.”
In a further scathing attack on the event’s sponsors, Venturelli stated that NFT companies are essentially irrelevant and need to buy their way into any influential space:
“These people are outsiders here, they’re not important. They’re just trying to buy their relevance, because they have no actual influence over the future of our industry. If you just give them this space uncontested, you’re just giving them exactly what they want, and buying their narrative that they’re relevant.”
It’s not the first time the concept of NFTs has been the subject of severe criticism. Earlier this year, British publisher Team17 backtracked on its own plans to launch ‘MetaWorms’ NFTs after an overwhelming negative response from consumers and developers alike. Similarly, Sonic publisher SEGA has indicated that it may too take a step back from the NFT space.
What do you make of Venturelli’s talk on NFTs? Do you think the concept is heading the way of the dodo? Let us know with a comment!
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