Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Calls NFTs “Interesting,” is Cautious in regards to the “Play-to-Earn” Mannequin

The topic of NFTs and blockchain tech in video games continues to be a sizzling matter, with many publishers persevering with to discover the idea regardless of it largely being rejected by gamers. Thus far, it’s appeared like Microsoft was largely anti-NFT, with Xbox boss Phil Spencer calling the tech “exploitative” and Mojang banning blockchain from Minecraft.

That mentioned, Spencer was requested about NFTs once more throughout a current Bloomberg interview, and it appears his stance could also be softening, as he admits there may very well be some “interesting things” performed with the tech.

“We made some comments in Minecraft about how we view NFTs in this space, because we saw people doing things that we thought were exploitative in our product – we said we don’t want that. I think sometimes it’s a hammer looking for a nail when these technologies come up. But the actual human use – or player use, in our case – of these technologies, I think there could be some interesting things.”

That mentioned, Spencer continues to be cautious in regards to the “play-to-earn” mode and its potential for turning gamers into staff…

“Play-to-earn specifically is something I am cautious about. It creates a worker force out of players for certain players to monetize. To be fair for us, in the games industry, this has existed for years and years. There have been gold farmers–people who literally just spend their time doing some menial task in a game to accrue some currency that they can then sell to some other rich player for real money, so that person doesn’t have to spend their time. But now you find games that are starting to build that into the economy of the game itself.”

The actuality is, as a lot as customers resist, the concept of the metaverse and promoting digital items like NFTs is a bone tech and gaming firms aren’t going to surrender simply, and if there ultimately comes a tipping level where folks really begin to embrace these things, you possibly can wager Microsoft can be there to take benefit.

What do you assume? Will NFTs and the like ever take off or is this idea a useless finish?