YouTube streamer Herschel “Dr Disrespect” Beahm is certainly no stranger to controversy, as the indefinite Twitch ban against the first-person shooter expert shows, but he usually lives in harmonical coexistence with his followers. When it comes to NFT games, however, even the popular streamer can’t excite his entire fan base.
“The concept of digital collectibles in an online game is so exciting to me,” he wrote on Twitter. “Especially an extraction type of game. People saying scam and ‘ugh’ are just brain dead headline followers. Same people that spend a ton on skins for an annual release game. Same skins everyone has too.”
Imagine trying to ‘extract’ with an item you discovered worth $100,000 on the chain.
Think about entertainment value as a viewer let alone player.
A new pvp experience is upon us…
— Dr Disrespect (@DrDisrespect) March 5, 2023
“Imagine trying to ‘extract’ with an item you discovered worth $100,000 on the chain,” Beahm said. “Think about entertainment value as a viewer let alone player. A new pvp experience is upon us…”
Dr Disrespect is currently working on his extraction shooter, DEADROP, which he seems to envision as containing NFTs to provide the exciting type of gameplay he has in mind. He has previously released NFTs in connection with the project.
Beahm’s vision is not shared among all of his followers, though, one of whom replied: “Ugh, NFT/blockchain gaming? I thought you were better than that. Was looking forward to your game, should’ve known better when you dropped exclusive NFT tokens for it lol.”
Reacting rather undiplomatically to this feedback, the streamer simply answered: “What an idiot”.
It seems like Dr Disrespect is buying into the vision of the same NFTs being available and fully functional across many different games, a view held among many supporters of this technology in video games. When challenged about why developers would even bother implementing content from other games in their titles without getting paid for it, he did not post a response.
This frequently held viewpoint among NFT supporters has often been called out by developers, who’ve explained why this is pretty much unfeasible as such a level of interoperability simply doesn’t exist in game development. Independent developer Rami Ismail, to name one notable example, says that even very basic objects in a game can be difficult to implement across different titles and engines.
Let's imagine making dice in a game.
— Rami Ismail (رامي) (@tha_rami) January 10, 2022
Beahm seems like he’s willing to try and find a way, and only time will tell if he can successfully do so – he would be among the first when it comes to the controversial NFT game sector.
Written by Oliver Brandt and Marco Wutz on behalf of GLHF.
