In a recent company earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson called the planet-destroying phenomenon that are NFTs, "the future of our industry." The video game industry won't have a future if the world is on fire because people are trading in-game items that require the energy of a small sun to create.
"I think that in the context of the games we create and the live services that we offer, collectible digital content is going to play a meaningful part in our future," Wilson said. Collectible digital content is the entire foundation of EA's Ultimate Team model, which already makes the company a staggering 28 percent of its annual income - $1.5 billion last financial year alone.
EA is a ridiculously rich video game company, it doesn't need to partake in an environmentally unethical, unsustainable practises. It probably just wants even more money. Greed appears to be the real driving force behind NFTs. Even Neopets is doing them.
EA is not the first video game company to express an interest in expanding into the new technology. NFTs are digital receipts that prove "true" ownership over online assets. Even though anyone can have a copy of any image online, only the owner of the NFT will have the true copy, the original - who cares?
The main issue is, the blockchain transactions that create NFTs use absurd amounts of energy. According to a report by The Verge, the average NFT has the same carbon footprint of someone using a month's worth of electricity. It's unsustainable.
NFTs for video games mean you could be the only person who truly, really, honestly, genuinely owns an in-game item like a weapon wrap or player skin. You'll get a little icon next to your name - or some marker - so everyone in your lobby knows you got into debt and burned down a forest - maybe kicked some deer in the face while you were at it - just so you could "own" some purple tiger print camo. Well done, pal.
Ubisoft has also announced its interest in "play-to-earn" technology, believing it will allow players to "actually earn content," because its not enough to have an in-game item anymore. You need a receipt printed on the paper of a million trees to prove you "actually" own it.